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CONDITION AND PROSPECTS 

OF THE 

GREEK OR ORIENTAL CHURCH. 



THE 



CONDITION AND PBOSPECTS 

OF THE 

GREEK OR ORIENTAL 
CHURCH; 

WITH SOME LETTERS WRITTEN FROM THE CONVENT 
OF THE STROPHADES. 

1 y 

BY GEORGE WADDOGTON, D. D„ 

DEAN OF DURHAM. 
AUTHOR OF ' c A VISIT TO GREECE," ETC. ETC. 



jaeto IBIrttton, Mebtstfr. 



LONDON: 

JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET. 
1854. 




LONDON: WOODFALL AND KINDER, PRINTERS, 
ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET. 



CONTENTS. 



PAET I. 

CHAPTER I. 
Introductory — Greece Proper . 

CHAPTER II. 

Schismatics — Moral condition of Oriental Christians — Walachia, 
Moldavia — Propriety and policy of placing them under Aus- 
trian protection ...... 

CHAPTER III. 

The Doctrines of the Church — The Trinity — Redemption— State 
of the Dead — Comparison with Roman Catholic 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Sacraments of the Church — Baptism — The Eucharist— Con- 
fession ....... 



vi 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER V. 

The Rites, Ceremonies, and Superstitions of the Church — Fasts 
and Feasts — Pictures—Tapers — Sign of the Cross — Services, 
and manner of performing them — Ancient Superstitions — 
Annual Miracles — That performed near Magnesia — That at 
Jerusalem ....... 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Monastic System— Its Origin — Progress — Beautiful situation 
of Convents — Duties of the Monks— Revenues — Samos — 
Unity of Order — Comparison with Roman Catholic System . 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Secular Clergy, and Government of the Church — Marriage 
of Secular Clergy — Their poverty — Revenues of the Church. 
— Four Patriarchs — That of Constantinople— His weakness 
—Greek and Romish System of Government contrasted — 
Popular Influence of Greek priesthood — Ignorance . 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Toleration— Greek Church— Church of Rome— Church of England 

CHAPTER IX. 

On the Hopes of a Reformation of the Church— Its Antiquity- 
Its Doctrines compared to those of the Latin Church— Its 
Monastic System — Its Tenets — Practices— Government- 
Regarded with a view to reformation — Conclusion 



CONTENTS, 



vii 



PAET II. 

Page 

History of Greek Church during the Seventeenth Century—Con- 
nexion between the Priesthood and the People — Aggressions 
of Roman Church — Council of Florence — Turkish Conquest 
— Subsequent attempts of Rome— Cyril Lucar — Patriarch of 
Constantinople — His Confession of Faith — Romish Intrigues 
opposed by Protestants — Death of Cyril — Synod of Con- 
stantinople — Of Yassi — Of Jerusalem — Result of the 
whole . . . . . .75 



PAET III. 

Letters from the Convent of the Strophades . . ,97 



It must be borne in mind that this Book was fir 
published in 1829. 

May, 1854. 



THE 

GREEK CHURCH. 



CHAPTER I. 

The political independence of Greece, or of the greater 
portion of Greece, which appears at length to be perma- 
nently secured, will probably satisfy the speculations and 
the hopes of the mere politician ; he will perceive in its 
establishment the immediate liberation of an intelligent 
people from the oppression of a foreign Government, 
from the sufferings and degradation of slavery ; and he 
will foresee in its action and development the advance 
of civilisation and knowledge, the rich rewards of com- 
mercial activity, the splendour of national prosperity. 

This is, indeed, a prospect, on which no generous mind 
will dwell with indifference ; and the measures which are 
tending to realise it, to whatsoever objections of momen- 
tary inexpediency they may have been liable, may become 
the subject of more ardent applause with our posterity, 
than any political achievement of this age. For, though 
the judgment and feelings of statesmen may sometimes 
be subdued by fears of instant evil, or hope of present 
advantage, it is certain that history, in her noble office 
of retribution, neither measures the grandeur of events 
by the limits of the scene on which they pass, nor is so 
blinded by considerations of international justice, as to 
overlook the natural and universal claims of humanity. 

But, however important the blessings which will im- 
mediately result to Greece from political regeneration, 
and which may set at rest the anxiety of her ordinary 
friends, there are still some who are more deeply inte- 



2 



THE GEEEK CHTJKCH. 



rested in her destinies, as well from the peculiar affection 
which they bear to herself, as from their general solici- 
tude for the improvement and welfare of man. There 
are some who value her restoration to liberty, chiefly as 
the means of reviving virtues which are extinct, or 
creating those which have not hitherto existed; and 
who truly consider the proper end and object of every 
exertion in her favour, to be her absolute moral reforma- 
tion. 

The great necessity of such reformation is not now 
disputed, even by her most partial advocates ; but as 
these are generally disposed to expect it as the obvious 
and instant result of national independence, they dismiss 
all thought and care respecting an event of such seeming 
certainty. 

But, in truth, the circumstances which connect the 
moral improvements of a nation with changes in its 
political constitution, are neither so simple in their kind, 
nor so easy and rapid in their action, as some are dis- 
posed to imagine ; and though, in the sudden casting off 
of slavery, many foul and inherent spots and stains may 
fall away with it, much time, and the co-operation of 
many instruments, are requisite before any general alter- 
ation can be wrought in the nature and internal consti- 
tution of the body. 

The application of these instruments must, in each 
case, be regulated by the character of the people, and the 
description of the vices to be contended with ; and the 
more seriously we meditate on the means most efficacious 
for the moral regeneration of Greece, the less does it 
seem possible to separate that consummation from the 
hope of her religious reformation. For the habits of the 
Greeks are, in many respects, so peculiarly interwoven 
with their form of worship, that if in all countries the 
connexion of morality with religion be sufficiently evi- 
dent, that connexion is perhaps nowhere so close and so 
necessary as in Greece. 

And, certainly, the most superficial observer of Greek 
character must have noticed, among its most prominent 



GEEECE PEOPEE. 



3 



features, a strong sense of religious duty, and of the sub- 
mission due to a higher order of beings. That this na- 
tural inclination to piety has been misdirected to objects 
unworthy, and converted by successive abuses into a pas- 
sion for ceremonies and frivolous superstitions, leads us 
to lament, indeed, that such excellent energies have been 
abused so sinfully, but not to doubt their force, or to 
despair of their future application to nobler purposes. 
For it has ever appeared to me, that that ardent and 
obstinate adherence to the duties imposed by his priest, 
and mistaken for his religion, which supports the Greek 
through his severe fasts and rigid observances, would 
acquire additional strength and constancy by the substi- 
tution of purer rules of obedience. 

These are some of the considerations which have led 
me to investigate the real nature of the religion now 
professed by the Christians of the East, and the extent 
of the corruptions which have grown over it ; for if it 
be probable (as I am disposed sincerely to believe) that 
the recent change in their political condition will finally 
lead to a more perfect regeneration, it is not an unprofit- 
able employment so to examine their errors as to point 
out also the foundation of their hopes. And it may 
happen, that the general and candid discussion both of 
the one and of the other, will contribute in some degree 
to bring about the result Ave pray for* 



CHAPTER II. 



From the narrow limits of regenerate Greece, which have 
merited the tribute of our first attention, and will con- 
tinue to claim our principal notice, we shall now advance 
into that extensive field assigned to our researches, which 
is bounded on the north by the boundaries of the Rus- 
sian empire, and by the extreme hills of Abyssinia on 
the south. It is true that the continuity of this province 
of Christ's kingdom is interrupted by the vast but thinly- 
peopled tracts which spread their barrenness from Egypt 
to Sennaar ; but of the rich and populous countries which 
lie between those distant extremities, some are exclu- 
sively, and all are partly, inhabited by Christians. 

The great majority of oriental Christians remain at- 
tached to the orthodox Church — for besides the Wala- 
chians, Moldavians, Servians, and Greeks properly so 
called, there are very many thousands who, under that 
name, and professing that faith, are scattered through 
Bulgaria and the broad extent of Roumelia, Albania, and 
Asia Minor ; and they are even mixed, though in much 
smaller numbers, with the heretics of Syria, Assyria and 
Egypt. These heretics are divided by the Greek theolo- 
gians into four descriptions,^ the Armenians, Copts, Ma- 

* I have adopted the division of Cyril Lucar, given in his thirteenth 
letter, as published by Aymon (" Monumens Authentiques de la Religion 
des Grecs," &c, p. 154). The Patriarch has expressed his abhorrence of 
these misguided persons rather more warmly than became his usual mode- 
ration and humanity ; and therefore I will not omit the mention of a 



HERESIES. 



5 



ronites, and Jacobites. The first two are accused of 
attachment to the errors of the Monophysites ; and this, 
though it may in some degree be true of both, applies 
more strictly to the Copts than to the Armenians ; but 
the truth is probably this, that scarcely one among the 
people and a very small proportion of the priesthood of 
either nation have any knowledge of the nature of the 
dispute, or any decided opinion on the subject. They are 
aware, indeed, that, for some reason or other, they do not 
acknowledge as their head the Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, but govern their own Church after their own 
fashion ; and, contenting themselves with this visible and 
intelligible distinction, they are little curious about the 
speculative differences which may have produced it. 
And it is certain, now that the ardour of controversy 
is extinguished, that the orthodox Church is less deeply 
scandalised by their heresy than by their schism. 

The Maronites are Syrians, chiefly inhabitants of 
Mount Libanus, and profess the Eoman Catholic faith. 
It is not certain how far they comprehend or how closely 
they embrace the doctrine of Koine, but it is known that 
they publicly admit the supremacy of the Pope and the 
forms of his government ; and it is believed that their 
fidelity is occasionally encouraged by the remittance of 
considerable sums of money. Some remains also of the 
Nestorians are found in Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Persia, 
&c, and these are still said to form the most respectable 
portion of oriental Christians. 

Among the various nations and tribes professing the 
orthodox faith, we shall at present restrict our remarks 
to the Principalities of Walachia and Moldavia ; because 
respecting Servia I cannot speak with the confidence of 
personal observation, and because the inhabitants of the 
capitals, Constantinople and Smyrna, are not fair speci- 
mens of the general populations ; and also because to 

singular error into which he has himself fallen, in confounding the Jaco- 
bites with the Nestorians. These are his words : " Jacobitica est vilis- 
sima et spurcissima natio, neque de ilia est quod aliquid scribatur nisi quod 
ob hasresin suam Nestorianam nos latere non debeat," &c. — Page 159. 



6 



THE GBEEK CHUECH. 



these countries, to the Principalities as well as to 
Greece, the gates of civilisation appear at length to have 
been thrown open, so that the practical application of 
our remarks may not be altogether hopeless. 

I think it impossible to find two adjacent countries 
which present to the traveller so strong and so instructive 
a contrast as Transylvania and Walachia. Nature has 
been equally prodigal to both, or has even lavished her 
favours more bountifully on the broad open plains of the 
latter : they are intersected by innumerable rivulets, and 
throw out herbs, and wild plants, and shrubs in rank 
luxuriance ; but they bear few traces of the hand of man, 
and even the few they bear are indicative of his degrada- 
tion. Transylvania is inhabited by the same race of peo- 
ple, professing, for the most part, the same religion ; and 
there the fields and vineyards are carefully cultivated, 
and the produce is abundant and cheap ; and facility of 
communication is secured by excellent roads and regular 
conveyances. And what is of more importance, as it 
proves that the lower classes participate in the increasing 
prosperity, new and decent cottages are rising in every 
quarter, and the dress and countenance of the peasant 
betoken a condition not bordering upon want. Such is 
the appearance of Austrian Walachia — that of a young 
and vigorous country rapidly advancing to maturity. A 
narrow rivulet is crossed, and you enter, by a road rising 
directly up the mountain's side, the "Walachia of Turkey. 
Cultivation nearly ceases : a little Turkish wheat and a 
few straggling vines on the hill sides ; rich and extensive 
plains scarcely tracked by any road ; rare and dismal cot- 
tages disfigured by filth and misery, and a population 
whose face and rags bespeak the extremities of poverty 
and oppression : such are the features of this province, 
and such the objects which attend you almost to the 
gates of the capital. 

Bucharest # is a very extensive place, containing a 

* Before the confusion introduced by the Greek Revolution, the popu- 
lation of Bucharest was estimated at 80,000. 



WALACHIA. 



7 



varying population, of which the average may be 50 or 
60,000 ; and as it consists almost entirely of large mis- 
shapen palaces and wretched huts, it presents a very 
faithful picture of the political condition of the people : 
for, as if their Government, which is a despotism within 
a despotism, did not occasion a sufficiency of misery, the 
cup is filled up by the avarice of a stupid and ignorant 
nobility ; # to these the offices of State are generally sold, 
and made profitable by oppression. 

A large proportion of the landed property (I was 
assured a third) belongs to the Church, and from this 
quarter, at least, some charity might have been expected. 
But I was unable to observe that the dependents or 
neighbours of the monasteries were in a condition at all 
better than that of their squalid brethren, and the con- 
trast between their cabins and those spacious and well- 
constructed buildings, as it proved how little they profited 
by the wealth even of their religious instructors, seemed 
to set the seal of friendlessness upon their misery. And 
so it is that in appearance the Walachians bear no re- 
semblance to any other Christian people ; but they have 
many striking points of similarity with the Fellahs of 
Egypt, the most degraded of all Mahometans. The com- 
plexion and costume (when there is any) are not very 
different ; and in the manner and physiognomy of both is 
equally expressed that easy habit of obedience and ac- 
quiescence almost natural in hereditary slavery, which 
seems incompatible with any hope or memory of a better 
condition, and to which the Greeks were never reduced, 
even in the bitterest moments of oppression. 

It is not possible, nor is it desirable, that a nation so 
constituted and so governed should be populous. A 
country consisting of more square acres than the whole 

* They are called Boyars, a privileged class, and subject to no taxa- 
tion, so that the revenues, which are farmed, are extorted immediately 
from the lower orders. This enrichment of the ricli out of the poverty 
of the poor seemed (in 1 823) to be progressive, for I observed several 
new palaces in construction, but not one symptom or hope of improve- 
ment for the mass of the people. 



8 



THE GrEEEK CHTTECH. 



of ancient Hellas, and of far more rich and cultivable 
soil, does not contain (as far as I could learn with any 
certainty) half a million of souls. Whatever has been 
said of Walachia, is equally true of the sister province 
Moldavia, except that the capital of the latter is smaller, 
and the country more thinly peopled. Their united 
inhabitants cannot exceed a million ; and it is no exag- 
geration to assert that, with such vast natural resources, 
under a wise and vigorous Government, that number 
might be quadrupled in less than one century. 

It is right to observe, that in the neighbouring pro- 
vince of Bulgaria, inhabited partly by Mahometans and 
partly by Christians, and under the immediate govern- 
ment of the Porte, the land is much better cultivated, 
the villages are more decent and the people more agri- 
cultural and more numerous. 

The moral condition of the Walachians is described 
to be such as their political degradation would lead us 
to apprehend. In the capital, the corruption of manners 
is said to be universal, and the insignificance or entire 
want of a middle class makes this very credible. And if, 
on the other hand, it be true, (as I have heard it fre- 
quently asserted,) that capital offences are of rare occur- 
rence, we may probably attribute this forbearance to 
that absolute enervation occasioned by habitual slavery, 
which destroys with every other energy even the courage 
to be greatly criminal. 

Ear removed from any intention of giving this work 
a character at all political, I cannot still refrain from 
making a few additional remarks on the actual prospects 
of "Walachia and Moldavia. Their final restitution to 
Turkish protection, I hesitate not to say, would be 
foolish if it were not wicked, and impolitic if it were not 
inhuman also. The inhumanity of such a project (could 
I believe it to exist) is attested by the long-protracted 
sufferings which have afflicted the past, and which would 
thus be perpetuated through the future, existence of a 



WALACHIA AKD MOLDAYIA. 



9 



country, capable of wealth, and public happiness, and 
political importance. For the great natural resources of 
that country, as they give security to its hopes of popu- 
lousness and prosperity under a good Government, so 
they plead with irresistible force against its restoration 
to a debasing and depopulating despotism. It is abso- 
lutely necessary that such considerations as these should 
have weight in the regulation of human affairs ; it is 
necessary that those to whom the destinies of nations 
are entrusted should be guided by some general regard 
for the happiness of man, so far, at least, as not to sacri- 
fice to any trilling circumstance of momentary conveni- 
ence, or distant and uncertain contingency, the obvious 
and perpetual interests of any people upon earth. The 
greatest statesmen of former days, those who live in our 
affections, as well as in our acmiiration, and thus possess 
the only description of fame which can satisfy the ambi- 
tion of any generous mind, were men who sometimes 
looked farther than the seeming advantage of the moment, 
and placed their policy in the exercise of their virtue, 
and found their own best interests in the welfare of 
others. And the statesmen of this age, second to none 
of their ancestors in talent and integrity, have much 
stronger reason to be assured that they will most sub- 
stantially consult international interests, as well as their 
own honour, by seizing every occasion to enlarge the 
limits of civilisation and to extend the blessings of social 
happiness and Christian government. 

But, besides these considerations, which some perhaps 
will think vague and unmeaning, there are others of a 
particular nature which will be intelligible to every 
statesman. I assume that the Turkish European empire 
is not devoted to extirpation; that the frightful project of 
destroying or expatriating six or seven millions, whether 
of slaves or of infidels, has been abandoned, as too mon- 
strous for serious deliberation. Besides which, it is 
necessary for the seciirity of Europe, that some power 
should for the present interpose between Bussia and 
Greece. And if the final expulsion of the Turk be 



10 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



indeed destined to some future generation, it is for the 
obvious interest of all, that a Greek and not a Russian 
Government should be established in its place ; for then, 
perhaps, with such extent of territory and abundance of 
natural resources, the Greek empire might have little 
reason to dread the contact of Russia. But, at present, 
as no such event can be reasonably expected, it is the 
undoubted policy of Europe to maintain the integrity 
of the empire, which is, properly speaking, Turkish. In 
this compass I mean to include all those provinces, and 
those only, wherein the great majority of the inhabitants 
is Mahometan ; for those which are not so (to omit all 
mention of their own misery) contribute very little to 
the actual strength of the empire. 

Now, it will not be disputed that to give any lasting 
security to Turkey, there is no other method than to di- 
minish her grounds of quarrel and collision with Russia ; 
and I leave it to politicians to answer, whether a very 
large proportion of these have not ever been occasioned by 
the right of interference possessed by Russia in the 
affairs of the Christian subjects of the Porte ? Now, it 
is obvious that, on the one side, the absolute independ- 
ence of Greece will remove much of this fuel of discord ; 
and that, on the other, the object would be almost com- 
pleted by the final and entire alienation of "Walachia and 
Moldavia from Turkey. These provinces have long lan- 
guished under Turkish protection, subject to certain 
conditions with Russia ; and the real or supposed viola- 
tion of these conditions has furnished, and would ever 
furnish, abundant causes or pretexts for dissension be- 
tween the two principals ; and these means of irritation 
cannot otherwise be cut away than by confining all 
Turkish interest and influence to the south of the 
Danube. 

The next question is more difficult : — To whom shall 
the preservation of these helpless provinces be trans- 
ferred ? To Russia ? — They will profit by the change 
of despotism ; they will gain some little in national 
independence and character ; something, perhaps, in 



WALACHIA AND MOLDAYIA. 



11 



civilisation ; something, probably, in moral and religious 
improvement ; and Europe will gain in tranquillity by 
any change which in any way disentangles or dissevers 
Russian and Turkish interests. But after all, pretexts 
of quarrel are easily found when they are ardently de- 
sired, neighbourhood increases the facility of strife, and 
the Danube would still prove an insufficient barrier to 
the ambition of the stronger. 

I can imagine one arrangement only which presents 
any hopes permanently to secure the independence of 
Turkey and the peace of Europe, and the difficulties 
which seem opposed to its accomplishment shall not 
prevent me from calling attention to it : I would propose 
to consign the Principalities to the protection of Austria. 

It is scarcely necessary to point out the advantages 
which this measure would confer both on the provinces 
themselves and on the body of Europe. It is now gene- 
rally admitted, that the internal government of the do- 
minions of Austria is mild and beneficent, tending by 
their gradual improvement to their permanent prosperity; 
and there can be no reason why the same wise policy 
should not be extended to Walachia and Moldavia. 
But a greater object than even this would be obtained 
by the security which would durably be given to the 
repose of Europe, by the interposition of Austrian terri- 
tory between Russia and Turkey. Eor by this means 
not only would all pretexts of quarrel derived both from 
that territory itself and from the contiguity of the two 
empires be abolished, but their very power of mutual 
invasion subjected to the intervention of a third. 

I am not so blind as to imagine that the might and 
ambition of Russia could be constrained by this, or any 
other possible arrangement, to perpetual tranquillity ; 
but I think that would be a material benefit both to this 
and to future ages which should obstruct and dam up the 
present channel of her waters, and divert them into the 
wastes and desolation of Asia. Overwhelming Europe, 
they would inundate, but never fertilise ; but if we turn 
them eastward, and distribute them over barrenness and 



12 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



barbarism, we shall at the same time avert all danger and 
inquietude from ourselves, and open the best human 
prospect of the civilisation and conversion of the East. 
And as to the European provinces of Turkey, we need 
not doubt that in the long process of time and accident 
they will yield to the successive encroachments of that 
enterprising people, who are now once more a nation, and 
who will advance in power as they increase in virtue, and 
whose hopes and whose efforts will finally be satisfied by 
the restoration of the Greek empire. 

The sum of what I have said is this — It is an object of 
vast importance to ourselves and our posterity, of great 
consideration to Europe, and I think to Asia also, that 
the weight of the Russian empire should be brought to 
press upon Asia, not upon Europe ; for its influence in 
the one case may be beneficial, in the other it must be 
injurious. To this end it is conducive, perhaps necessary, 
to obstruct her communication with European Turkey ; 
this cannot otherwise be effected than by the interposi- 
tion of Austria. Nor can this interposition be otherwise 
brought about, than by transferring Walachia and Mol- 
davia to Austrian protection. 

The means to produce this desirable result are doubt- 
less to be found in the resources of diplomacy. 



It was not to be expected that the Rulers of the 
World would listen to the suggestions of an obscure 
clergyman. The Principalities were replaced on their 
former bad footing, and — where are they now ? 

May, 1854. 



CHAPTER III. 



ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH. 

I. The doctrine of the Trinity is maintained by the 
Greek Church as it was originally established by the first 
two G-eneral Councils ; and thus it differs from both the 
Latin and the Reformed Churches, respecting the man- 
ner of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Greeks 
maintain it to be from the Father only, and rest the 
truth of their opinion chiefly on its antiquity ; and such 
proof, though it can have little weight with us, is of con- 
clusive authority against Roman Catholics. This seems, 
indeed, to have been the point on which the Greek de- 
puties, at the Council of Florence, made their best 
stand ; and with such success, that they were even al- 
lowed to retain the words "by the Son; " but this for- 
bearance, on the part of their adversary, was attended 
by the condition, that they should interpret them in the 
same sense in which the Latins understood "from the 
Son." 

However, on their return to Greece, they found it 
difficult to impose this absurdity on their communion, or 
to endure the shame of having themselves admitted it. 
The creed remained unaltered, and the words were per- 
mitted to keep their natural meaning, and do so to this 
day. In the year 1648, Leo Allatius, a Roman Catholic 



14 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



Greek, again endeavoured, # with much unsuccessful so- 
phistry, to establish the equivalence of the two expres- 
sions. In the course of his work, and in confirmation 
of his argument, he quotes some Greek author, who 
admits " that it was on no solid or rational ground that 
the two Churches had been so long at war with each 
other." And on this point we are very well disposed to 
agree both with them and with him. Willingly do we 
admit that the difference in question is indeed most in- 
sufficient ground for animosity and dissension ; and if, 
instead of insulting our common sense by an attempt to 
disprove its existence, he had shown that it affects no 
social principle, that it interferes with none of our 
Christian duties, that it touches, in no respect, the ex- 
ercise of benevolence and charity, that it contains no 
rational cause of individual dislike or distrust, he would 
have done more honour to his own name, and to the faith 
which he professed and advocated. But such principles 
were in no esteem, when the object proposed was the ex- 
ternal union of the two Churches ; for to this end it had 
advanced little, to prove the differences trivial and unim- 
portant. It was to be shewn, at any expense of reason 
and sense and truth, that they existed not at all ; and 
when all distinctions had thus been smoothed away, it 
would have remained to the Greek to surmount only one 
other necessary obstacle to the embrace of her Eoman 
sister, — the acknowledgment of the Pope's supremacy. 

A controversy between consecrated prejudice and scho- 
lastic sophistry could hope for no termination ; and thus 
at length it became the means to produce that celebrated 
schism, which would have possessed much less real im- 
portance in the history of man, if the division of 
churches had not involved the discord of nations, and ex- 
cited to mutual malice and violence the misdirected 
children of Christ. And, even to this day, though the 
fury of the controversy has long since passed away, the 
passions which it disturbed are scarcely composed, but 

* In his famous Treatise, " De perpetuo Ecclesise Occidentals atque 
Orientalis tarn in dogmate quam in ritibus consensu." 



DOCTRIKES — REDEMPTION — STATE OP THE DEAD. 15 

still toss and beat and murmur along the shores of the 
East. 

II. On the subject of Eedemption, the doctrines of 
the Greek Church appear to differ little or nothing from 
our own* Christ is called the Regenerator of our fallen 
nature, — One single offence had degraded the human 
race ; one single expiation was necessary to redeem it ; 
the act of Eedemption was effected in the person of 
Jesus Christ. And then from the act of Eedemption 
the truth is derived, that man cannot regenerate himself 
by his own power ; and that he requires, for that purpose, 
the co-operation of divine grace with the efforts of his 
own will : as the earth is not fertilized either by the la- 
bour of man, or by the dews of heaven only, but by the 
consenting influence of both. 

Again, when the Greeks make mention of Justification 
by Paith, they mean that active and vital faith which 
comprehends in its effects, if not in its essence and defi- 
nition, the discharge of every social and moral duty. 

They admit the efficacy of sincere repentance ; but they 
disclaim some corruptions which have flowed from this 
source, and censure the invention and sale of Indul- 
gences in language which might become the zeal of the 
most ardent Protestant. 

III. Respecting the State of the Dead, the Greek 
Church has a very essential difference from that of Eome, 
which all the ingenuity of the latter has been unable to 
explain away. For, as it lays no claim to any knowledge 
of unearthly things, beyond that derived from Scripture 
and apostolical tradition as embodied in the Seven Gene- 
ral Councils, its pious humility and its veneration of 
antiquity are alike shocked by the introduction of Pur- 
gatory. Prom the earliest ages up to this moment,f the 
orthodox members of the Greek Church have ever held 
two separate places of existence for the souls of the 
departed, places of expectancy, until the resurrection of 

* Stourdza, p. 50. Considerations sur la Doctrine et PEsprit de 
rEglise Orthodoxe. 1816. 

f Stourdza, chap. iii. Leo Allatius de Purgatorio, c. 34. 



16 



THE GKREEK CHTTBCH. 



the body and the final judgment, not eternal abodes — 
they have held that the souls of the wicked are confined 
in regions of darkness and discomfort and sorrow, apart 
from the light and glory of heaven — that the saints enjoy 
a certain degree of beatitude, which will then be per- 
fected and consummated, when their bodies shall finally 
be restored to them. But, though they allow the pro- 
bability of different mansions (a-roco-uq) in Gehenna, they 
disclaim all belief in a third and intermediate habitation. 
And when the nature and circumstances of this third 
abode are discovered to them by the penetration of the 
Latin Church, — when the purging fire is depicted, and 
they are told that living man has power over its agency 
and duration, — they reject at once what they consider an 
impious fable. 

On the other hand, it is not doubted that among the 
individual members of that communion there have been 
varieties of opinion respecting a matter of which all were 
equally ignorant, and on which the Church itself pro- 
fesses not infallibility. The argument which has been 
brought to prove its inconsistency (it can prove no more) 
is, the use of prayers for the dead — for to say that the 
souls already condemned to Gehenna can be assisted by 
the supplications of the living, is it not to assume that 
they exist there in a state of purification ; and that this 
act may be facilitated, if not by fire, indeed, at least by 
human intervention ? The pious expressions of Stour- 
dza # may serve to answer this objection. 

" We pray for the dead, because the act of prayer is 
the respiration of the soul, the secret of the Divinity, and 
the only method of approach to it. "We pray for the 
dead, because we stand as pledges one for the other: 
because we believe the infinity of Grod's mercies, without 
wishing to fathom their depths. But we admit no place 
of purgatory, because that dogma has not been taught 
us ; because all human speculations are vain to discover 
the ways of Divine Wisdom," &c. 

* Ch.iii.p.69. 



THE STATE OE THE DEAD — SAINTS — MARTYRS. 17 

In truth, to pray for the souls of our departed friends 
is the most natural and pardonable error of piety; and 
though it be dangerous and improper to inculcate as a 
church doctrine the efficacy of such prayers, it would 
neither be right to discourage their private and individual 
effusion, nor easy to disprove the possibility of their 
acceptance. 

There is one other point, which seems to have given 
some trouble to the Council of Florence, and which the 
Latin writers of the seventh century have taken much 
pains to illustrate. The Greeks did not believe in the 
immediate admission even of saints and martyrs to the 
beatific vision. The Latins maintained the contrary 
opinion, with the confidence of absolute certainty, and 
on this point have, at least, the merit of greater consis- 
tency — for as both Churches agree in soliciting by prayer 
the mediation of those blessed persons, it seems natural 
to infer that these are already in the presence of the 
Being with whom they are invoked to intercede. But 
such blemishes (if they be really so) in the uniformity 
of the Greek faith only prove that that Church has not 
been diligent to erect specious tenets on foundations of 
little security ; that it has not studied to present a show 
of unanimity on matters where none can really exist, but 
rather has left some licence to individual opinion, where 
certainty does not seem attainable. 

On reviewing what has been written, we perceive that 
the doctrinal differences of the three Churches are not 
numerous, and that those especially which subsist between 
the Greeks and ourselves are not of a nature which can 
ever disturb our religious concord. In the first place, 
they differ with us and with the Latins equally, on the 
manner of the holy procession — on a mystery almost 
impenetrable to human investigation, they maintain the 
original doctrine of the (Ecumenic Church ; in this the 
Latins thought proper, in a later age, to make an altera- 
tion, which we find to be scriptural. From this innova- 
tion some violent dissensions flowed, troubling the super- 
stitious age which nourished them. But the retrospect 

c 



18 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



of such calamities, as have passed like a storm over the 
face of society and can never more return, does not 
otherwise affect us, than as it moves the astonishment 
of some and the sorrow and compassion of all. 

In comparing the other points of difference, we observe 
the gradations by which Christianity has been corrupted, 
and we see, too, how far the Roman has outstepped the 
distrustful timidity of the Grreek. The latter assigns 
some not very definite residence to departed souls; he 
offers prayers for the forgiveness of the sinful, in hope, 
rather than in confidence, that they will be accepted. 
He supplicates the intercession of the Saints, without 
daring to pronounce that they have themselves attained 
the perfection of the blessings intended for them. But 
the Roman has no such hesitation or scruple : exalting 
the saints and martyrs as intercessors to the immediate 
presence of the Trinity, he besides asserts the existence 
of another condition of the departed; he is acquainted 
with its nature ; he has certain knowledge of the element 
of purification, and is master of the means to control it. 
Without entering into the reasons of this greater arro- 
gance on the part of the Latin Church, it may be suffi- 
cient again to observe, that in the matters here briefly 
treated, the Greeks appear to be placed about half way 
between the Latins and ourselves; that the points on 
which they and we are divided are not of fundamental 
importance ; and, though they may be more than suffi- 
cient to prevent the union of the Churches, that they 
present no principle to impede the harmony and friend- 
ship of virtuous men, or to chill us in the discharge of 
the Christian duties which we owe to each other. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE SACRAMENTS OF THE GREEK CHURCH. 

The Greek agrees with the Latin Church in the re- 
ception of Seven Mysteries, or Sacraments. Pour of 
these, Baptism, the Eucharist, the Imposition of Hands 
in Ordination, and Penance, it considers as having been 
" practically instituted" by Christ himself. # The other 
three (Marriage, Chrism, or Confirmation, and Extreme 
Unction) , it derives from the words of the Testament and 
the use of the primitive Church. Greek writers continue 
to involve the explanations of them in a cloud of fanciful 
absurdities, so as to satisfy, by the same course of argu- 
ment, their belief in the doctrines of Christianity ; their 
principles regarding the mystical union of the visible 
and invisible world, and their antique veneration for the 
number Seven. 

* Stourdza, liv. ii. ch. i. There have been abundant disputes in the 
Church respecting the number and nature of the mysteries. Cyril Lucar 
reduced them to two : others maintained that two only were of im- 
portance, the rest were the lesser mysteries. Some have distinguished 
two, others three, and others four, as practically instituted by our Saviour. 
The word mystery is defined — " a ceremony or act appointed by God, 
in which God giveth or signifieth to us his grace." Ricaut, p. 160, 
enumerates them in this order: — Baptism, Chrism, the Holy Eucharist, 
Priesthood, Matrimony, Repentance, rb Evx&aiov, or the Oyl of 
Prayer. 

c 2 



20 



THE GEEEK CHURCH. 



On three only of the mysteries will it be necessary to 
bestow much attention ; Baptism, the Eucharist, and 
Penance. The celebration of marriage, indeed, is at- 
tended by many more formalities in the Greek than in 
other Churches ; and we may add, that, in the south at 
least, the knot is more easily dissoluble. This circum- 
stance we are disposed to attribute partly to the general 
poverty of the Greek priests, who fail not to profit by 
such dissolutions ; and partly to the influence of Maho- 
metan example. The sacraments of Ordination and 
Unction differ little, either in principle or manner of 
celebration, from the corresponding sacraments in the 
Roman Church. 

I. Baptism is still administered in the East by trine 
immersion. The Greeks set great value on the strict 
observance of that ceremony, and warmly maintain their 
orthodoxy against the innovations of the Latin Church, 
by pleading the example of our Saviour himself, the very 
meaning of the word baptism, which implies # immersion, 
and the consent of that original and genuine Catholic 
Church, which they assert to be perpetuated in their own. 

Children are baptised f on the eighth day ; and the 
sacrament of Confirmation, by the holy Chrism or Bap- 
tismal Ointment, follows at a very short interval that 
of Baptism. 

II. Respecting the nature of the Eucharist, it is un - 
doubtedly true that there is at present little, if any, dif- 
ference between the professed orthodox belief of the 
Greek and Latin Churches ; but in the manner of its 
celebration, the Greeks, in obedience both to ancient 

* See Stourdza, p. 87 ; and Dr. King on " Rites and Ceremonies of 
the Greek Church in Russia," p. ] 92. 

t The administration is attended by some ceremonies, relics perhaps 
of former religions ; as that of the o-<j)pdyi<Jis, or sealing of the infant, 
before baptism ; and the dispossessing of the Evil Spirit, who is be- 
lieved to dwell in the child until the priest has blown upon it three 
times. 

The Georgians, who, in other respects, follow the Greek faith, do not 
baptize their children till they have attained the eighth year. 



THE EUCHARIST. 



21 



practice and the obvious command of Scripture, continue 
to communicate under both forms. 

" The dogma of the Beal Presence under the trans- 
formed elements of bread and wine," is distinctly pro- 
claimed by Stourdza # as that of his Church, with some 
expression of astonishment that any doubt can exist 
respecting its truth. The words of the Oriental Confes- 
sion are even more explicit : " "When the priest conse- 
crates the elements (gifts), the very substance of the 
bread and of the whie is transformed into the substance 
of the true body and blood of Christ." t 

In the Communion Service, according to the Liturgy 
of St. Chrysostom, which is universally in use, the cere- 
mony is called an oblation or sacrifice, and the following 
is shortly the process of administration. After the Cate- 
chumens, if any be present, have been dismissed, the 
elements are carried round the Church, on the head of 
the deacon, before consecration. Presently the priest 
prays Glod to make the bread and wine the precious 
body and blood of Christ : — first for each element sepa- 
rately, and then for both united ; then after some inter- 
vening prayers, he invokes the gift of the Holy Ghost : 
and lastly, after another similar interval, he addresses 
Jesus Christ our God, " who sittest on the right hand of 
the Father, and yet art invisibly present with us here 
below ; vouchsafe by thy mighty hand to impart to us 
thy most immaculate body, and thy most precious blood, 
and by our hands to all the people." The Sacrament is 
then administered first to the deacon, and then to the 
congregation ; and we may add that the prayer made by 

* P. 91. In the oath taken by every Russian bishop at his consecra- 
tion, he affirms that " he believes and understands that the transubstan- 
tiation of the body and blood of Christ in the holy Supper, as taught by 
the eastern and ancient Russian doctors, is effected by the influence and 
operation of the Holy Ghost, when the bishop or priest invokes God the 
Father in these words: — 'And make this bread the precious body of 
thy Christ.' "—Dr. King, p. 12. 

t c Owov 6 lepevs aytd^ei ra dwpa, tj avrrj ovaia rov aprov teal 7] ovcria 
rod olvov fieraPdAAerai e*s r^yovcriav rod aK-qQivov o-dofxaros not afyaros 
rov Xpicnov. 



22 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



the deacon on receiving the Sacrament, contains these 
words : " I believe that this is thy most pure body 
indeed, and that this is thy holy blood indeed." 

I have taken this account from the Liturgy in use in 
the Russian Church, as translated by Dr. King, in his 
very faithful description of that Church ; and thus is 
clearly proved its unqualified assent to the doctrine of 
transnbstantiation. But I have many doubts whether 
this doctrine be understood with equal precision in 
Greece. Both Churches, indeed, profess the Liturgy 
of St. Chrysostom ; but this has undergone some altera- 
tions in either, and these in some respect different, since 
the independence of the Church of Russia. I find in 
Ricaut^ (who wrote in 1678) a quotation from that 
Liturgy, as used in Greece, which differs materially from 
the corresponding passage in Dr. King's translation of 
the Russian, and certainly does not breathe any taint of 
transubstantiation. At any rate, the practical influence 
of the dogma has gained no ground in the East, and the 
same degree of superstitious veneration is not there 
offered to the Host, as under the Roman Church. "When 
this sacrament is carried to the sick, the priests do not 
prostrate themselves before it, nor do they expose it 
publicly to be adored, unless in the very act of adminis- 
tration ; nor do they carry it in procession, nor have 
they instituted any particular feast in honour of it. 
These circumstances, as they prove to us the compara- 
tive modesty with which this tenet t is inculcated in 
Greece, do they not also dispose us to suspect its anti- 
quity ? Is it probable that so few abuses and absurdities 
should have grown out of a soil so fruitful, among a 
people enamoured of marvels and miracles, if it had really 
existed there during the earlier ages of Christianity ? 
The question respecting the original belief of the Greek 
Church, on this point, has given rise to abundant discus- 
sions, and exercised especially the ingenuity and diligence 
of the seventeenth century. To some of these we shall 



* Chap. ix. p. 185. 



f Ricaut, p. 182. 



TBANSUBSTANTIATIOlSr. 



23 



refer hereafter.* Meanwhile it is proper to remark that 
the word /^stouo-Wk, transubstantiation, is not to be fonnd 
in the earlier writings of the Church, and may be proved 
to be of recent introduction. From these facts, not 
intending at all to dispute the present general acceptance 
of the doctrine in question, I infer, however, with great- 
confidence, that it was not a doctrine of the early Church, 
and even that it was not distinctly defined and enforced 
as an essential tenet upon the Greek communion, until 
the middle of the seventeenth century. It is not here 
denied, that, from the first ages of Christianity, there 
have existed very elevated notions of the nature of the 
holy elements ; that the most ardent expressions have 
been used to exalt their sanctity ; and that some have 
supposed a sacramental change to be wrought in them 
by their consecration. And there may have been indi- 
viduals in every age and country, whose private belief 
has extended that change to the utmost limits of transub- 
stantiation. But the Church did not dogmatically incul- 
cate the tenet until it fell under the influence of Koine. 

In the celebration of the Eucharist, the Greek still 
agrees with the Reformed Churches in the use of leav- 
ened bread, as well as in distributing the cup to the laity. 
As to the former point, though considered of no material 
import, it has still the merit of having introduced into 
its ceremonies one corruption less than its Latin rival ; 
respecting the latter, the Christians of the East are not 
less offended than ourselves by the groundless innovation 
of Rome.f 

* In Part II. I have thrown such light as I have been able to collect 
on this obscure, but important portion of ecclesiastical history. 

t Yet even among them is a slight distinction in the manner of com- 
municating between the clergy and the laity. The latter receive both the 
elements together, the bread being sopped in the cup — the former receive 
them separate. " The Priest then communicates, eating part of that 
Bread which, in the time of preparation, was divided into four pieces, and 
the other three he puts into the chalice, of which with great devotion he 
sups three times ; and having himself received, he administers the rest 
in a spoon, in both kinds, to the communicants." — Kicaut, p. 198. 



24 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



III. The ambition of the early Church involved the 
acts of Penitence and Absolution in the sanctity of a 
mystery, that no duty of religion might be performed 
except by the intervention of its ministers, and that 
their spiritual influence might be extended over deeds 
and thoughts the most private and the most sacred : for 
to absolution they annexed Auricular Confession, on the 
pretext that " the priest cannot absolve unless he know 
what sins are to be remitted.'' This rite is not less in 
use and in honour in the Eastern than in the Roman 
Church ; there are some who account it " the sole axle 
on which the globe of ecclesiastical polity turns ;" and 
it is admitted, that without that support the whole fabric 
of spiritual power must fall to ruin. Stourdza calls it 
" an usage destined to bruise the arrogance of man with- 
out disturbing social order ? but though we may agree 
with him in regarding it as a melancholy triumph over 
human pride and dignity, it is in vain that he strives to 
convince us of the extreme moderation with which it is 
celebrated in the Greek Church. It is true, indeed, that 
the sale of indulgences and similar enormities have at 
no period been practised in the East ; but a power which 
is too mighty to be wielded by man will not be more 
temperately exerted, because those to whom it is in- 
trusted are deeply sunk in ignorance ; and the very value 
which it has acquired, as the engine of ecclesiastical 
authority, is sufficient to prove its abuse. 

The order of this sacrament in the Greek Church is 
solemn and imposing. After a prayer to " the God of 
Penitents," and another to Jesus Christ, who has dele- 
gated to his priesthood the power " to bind and loose," the 
priest turns to the penitent, and addresses him in the 
words* : — " Behold the angel of the Lord standeth by to 

* "Opa, tiyyeXos Rvplov irapicTTdrai ttju SfjioXoyiau aov £k 

ar6fxar6s aov, kcu jSAeVe fx^] <riyrjs rb afidprTj/JLa alaxvvys eVe/ca* 
*6tl Kayo) &vdpQ)ir6s elfju apt-apnaXbs &s kcu av. — See Ricaut, p. 265. 
The corresponding words used in the Russian Church are here again dif- 
ferent from the Greek, though bearing nearly the same import : they are 
as follows : — ' ' Behold, my child, Christ is invisibly present to receive thy 



PENITENCE AND ABSOLUTION. 



25 



receive thy confession from thy mouth ; and see that 
thou conceal not any sin through shame ; for I too am a 
man and a sinner like thyself." He is then interrogated 
respecting the ten commandments in succession, as to 
any violations of them which he may have committed, 
and finally receives his admonition and absolution. 

A distinction has been drawn by Dr. Covell, and 
applauded by Dr. King, # between the spirit of the 
Greek and Roman Churches in the celebration of this 
sacrament. In the former, they say, the confession is 
addressed to Grod himself, or to his angel, who is present 
— in the latter, directly to the priest ; and hence it is 
inferred that a much keener zeal and thirst for sacerdotal 
authority have ever distinguished the latter communion. 
The conclusion is undoubted; the distinction whence 
they derive it is vain and fanciful. The same power of 
absolution, founded on the same principle and defended 
by the same text, is claimed by either Church. Its exer- 
cise in either is a mystery or sacrament. The penitent 
is interrogated by the priest with equal rigour in the one 
and in the other. The end and effect are essentially the 
same; and as to the means by which the torture is 
applied, I am rather disposed to consider the Greek sys- 
tem as the more perfect ; for what fiction can we con- 
ceive so effectual to extort from the trembling culprit 
the deepest secrets of his heart as the presence of the 
messenger of Omniscience ? 

On referring to the material points of doctrine or 

confession ; be not ashamed therefore or afraid, and conceal nothing from 
me ; but without equivocation tell me whatsoever thou hast done, that 
thou mayest receive forgiveness from our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold his 
image before us ; I am only a witness to testify before Him whatsoever 
thou shalt say unto me; but if thou concealest anything from me thou 
shalt have double sin. Attend, therefore, since thou art come for the 
medicine, that thou goest not away unhealed." — Dr. King, p. 227. 

* Page 224. If, when he speaks of " the ancient Greek church," 
Dr. C. intends to allude to an original practice of immediate confession to 
God, we have only to lament the corruption which has long consumed such 
wholesome piety. But it is unfair to contrast the virtue that is dead in 
the one church with the vital evil which pollutes the other. 



26 



THE GKEEK CHUBCH. 



practice mentioned in this Chapter, we find that the 
Greek bears a greater affinity to the Latin than to the 
reformed Churches . In the nnmber and importance of 
the sacraments, in the distinguishing tenet of transub- 
stantiation, and, above all, in the use and necessity of 
auricular confession, there exists not any difference be- 
tween them. The Greeks retain the practice of trine 
immersion in baptism, and interpose no interval between 
that ceremony and confirmation. On the other hand, 
they communicate under both kinds, and disclaim the 
visible abuses which have flowed from the sacrament of 
penitence. 



CHAPTER V. 



ON THE RITES, CEREMONIES, AND SUPERSTITIONS OF 
THE GREEK CHURCH. 

Its a faith wherein the necessity of internal contrition 
and private prayer is little inculcated ; in which spiritual 
perfections are not highly regarded, except through their 
outward demonstration, rites and ceremonies, which form 
with all classes the practice of religion, supply to the 
vulgar the place of its substance. Such is the character 
which has been deeply and necessarily impressed on the 
religion of the East, since its ministers have succeeded in 
constituting themselves mediators between man and his 
Judge. It is to this end that the designs of an ambi- 
tious priesthood have ever tended — to interpose between 
the thirsty penitent and the Eountain of forgiveness, and 
to distribute its waters through such channels as lead 
most directly to their own interests ; and perhaps we 
may add, that to their success in this object the extent of 
their authority has generally been proportioued. 

If we were to examine in detail all the outward insti- 
tutions of the Greek Church, we should find them to 
differ little in principle from the corresponding cere- 
monies of the Papists. The varieties in practice arise 
partly from local circumstances, partly from the greater 
poverty of the Greeks and their stricter adhesion to 
ancient custom. 

I. Prom their fasts and their feasts the Greeks receive 



30 



THE GBEEK CHTJECH. 



part, admitting the truth of this assertion, I must still 
confess that, when I have beheld the peasant or the shep- 
herd from Parnes or Hymettus kneeling before the picture 
of the Holy Virgin, when I have observed the relaxation 
of his swarthy features and the earnestness of his atti- 
tude and countenance, I have found it hard to repress 
the belief, that he is, in fact, animated by the very same 
hopes and faith, in respect to the graceless figure towards 
which his eyes and prayers are directed, as were wont to 
inflame the piety of his pagan ancestor when he worship- 
ped before the statue of Minerva. In every age and 
religion which have permitted honour to be paid to 
images, there has never been any variance in the doctrine 
of the learned, nor any diversity in the practice and feel- 
ings of the vulgar. 

III. The use of tapers and torches, under the sunshine 
of a Grecian sky, is excused as a pious commemoration 
of the sufferings of the primitive Christians ; when they 
nourished their proscribed religion in subterraneous cells 
and obscure caverns, unvisited by the light of day. And 
this reason may have sufficed for the perpetuation of an 
innocent absurdity, which will oppose no serious resist- 
ance to the progress of reformation. 

IV. The Sign of the Cross is as much in use among 
Oriental Christians as in any Roman Catholic country, 
and is executed with at least equal rapidity and confi- 
dence in its virtues. The cross itself is addressed in 
frequent and solemn prayer, and honoured with the 
epithets and attributes of the Divinity. M. de Stourdza 
justifies this exceeding veneration by some pages of mys- 
ticism, calculated for the understanding of a Cossack 
and the learning of a monk of Mount Athos ; and 
which, in this age and country, would deserve no notice, 
if it did not exhibit to us the manner in which an 
enlightened member of the Eastern Church can still 
endure to reason. # 

* Page 56 : — " La croix est un representant de la structure humaine; 
elle semble uniquement faite pour Phomme, et ce genre de supplice carac- 
terise, symboliquement, toute sa misere et sa grandeur. Debout, dominant 



CEEEMONIE S PEO CE S SIO^S . 



31 



It is far from my intention to conduct the reader 
through a minute description of the successive cere- 
monies of this Church ; an intention which would, in 
fact, be best accomplished by transcription from the 
valuable works of Dr. King and others, who have been 
diligent in such details. Many of these ceremonies are 
connected with the administration of the Sacraments, 
and would more properly belong to the last chapter. 
Others are independent of the body of the liturgy, and 
partake even more abundantly of the nature of super- 
stition : such as the benediction of the loaves — an office, 
perhaps, commemorative of the primitive Agapae ; the 
benediction of the waters, which is performed with great 
religious and military parade on the ice, at St. Peters- 
burgh, in the depth of winter, in celebration of Christ's 
baptism ; or, the office of the " Divine and Holy Lavi- 
pedium," corresponding in origin, though yielding in 
splendour to the similar ceremony of the Eoman Church. 
Moreover, the Orientals appear to indulge, even to a 
greater extent than their Latin rivals, their passion for 
long and pompous processions, which characterised in a 
certain degree the antiquity of both. To arrest the 
ravages of a pestilence, or to compose the agitations of 
an earthquake, or to allay the danger of unseasonable 
drought, persons of every class, in every isle and valley 
of Greece, proceed in lengthened order, winding along 

de son front ce qui l'environne, les bras etendus comme pour embrasser 
cet espace immense dont il semble etre le roi ; les pieds fixes a cette 
valiee de larmes, la tete couronnee d'epines, emblemes des soucis rongeurs 
qui l'accompagnent jusque dans la tombe, voila Vhomme, ecce homo, voila 
Tadorable attitude de Thomme-dieu sur la terre. . . .Plus on medite, plus 
on se persuade que ce nest que par le supplice de la croix que Jesus Christ 
pouvait caracteriser en soi toutes les miseres et les transgressions humaines, 
les expier, les rocketer toutes, representer collectivement le genre humain, 
comme un seul etre," &c. Again, at p. 77 : — " C'est par la divine croix 
que s'opere perpetuellement ce miracle : signe de foi, d'araour et d'espe- 
rance, ce trophee de la mort est en meme terns le sanctuaire de la vie que 
notre pensee reclame au nom du rnediateur eterael. Embleme de la force 
combinee a la resistance et remise en Jiarmonie^ la croix a rachete le passe ; 
elle a confondu la justice et la misericorde ; elle seule nous devoilera 
Tavernr." 



30 



THE GrBEEK CHTJECH. 



part, admitting the truth of this assertion, I must still 
confess that, when I have beheld the peasant or the shep- 
herd from Parnes or Hymettus kneeling before the picture 
of the Holy Virgin, when I have observed the relaxation 
of his swarthy features and the earnestness of his atti- 
tude and countenance, I have found it hard to repress 
the belief, that he is, in fact, animated by the very same 
hopes and faith, in respect to the graceless figure towards 
which his eyes and prayers are directed, as were wont to 
inflame the piety of his pagan ancestor when he worship- 
ped before the statue of Minerva. In every age and 
religion which have permitted honour to be paid to 
images, there has never been any variance in the doctrine 
of the learned, nor any diversity in the practice and feel- 
ings of the vulgar. 

III. The use of tapers and torches, under the sunshine 
of a Grecian sky, is excused as a pious commemoration 
of the sufferings of the primitive Christians ; when they 
nourished their proscribed religion in subterraneous cells 
and obscure caverns, unvisited by the light of day. And 
this reason may have sufficed for the perpetuation of an 
innocent absurdity, which will oppose no serious resist- 
ance to the progress of reformation. 

IV. The Sign of the Cross is as much in use among 
Oriental Christians as in any Roman Catholic country, 
and is executed with at least equal rapidity and confi- 
dence in its virtues. The cross itself is addressed in 
frequent and solemn prayer, and honoured with the 
epithets and attributes of the Divinity. M. de Stourdza 
justifies this exceeding veneration by some pages of mys- 
ticism, calculated for the understanding of a Cossack 
and the learning of a monk of Mount Athos ; and 
which, in this age and country, would deserve no notice, 
if it did not exhibit to us the manner in which an 
enlightened member of the Eastern Church can still 
endure to reason. # 

* Page 56 : — " La croix est un representant de la structure humaine; 
elle semble uniquement faite pour Phomme, et ce genre de supplice carac- 
terise, symboliquement, toute sa misere et sa grandeur. Debout, dominant 



CEEEMOKIE S — PEO CE S SIO^S . 



31 



It is far from my intention to condnct the reader 
through a minute description of the successive cere- 
monies of this Church ; an intention which would, in 
fact, be best accomplished by transcription from the 
valuable works of Dr. King and others, who have been 
diligent in such details. Many of these ceremonies are 
connected with the administration of the Sacraments, 
and would more properly belong to the last chapter. 
Others are independent of the body of the liturgy, and 
partake even more abundantly of the nature of super- 
stition : such as the benediction of the loaves — an office, 
perhaps, commemorative of the primitive Agapae ; the 
benediction of the waters, which is performed with great 
religious and military parade on the ice, at St. Peters- 
burgh, in the depth of winter, in celebration of Christ's 
baptism ; or, the office of the " Divine and Holy Lavi- 
pedium," corresponding in origin, though yielding in 
splendour to the similar ceremony of the Eoman Church. 
Moreover, the Orientals appear to indulge, even to a 
greater extent than their Latin rivals, their passion for 
long and pompous processions, which characterised in a 
certain degree the antiquity of both. To arrest the 
ravages of a pestilence, or to compose the agitations of 
an earthquake, or to allay the danger of unseasonable 
drought, persons of every class, in every isle and valley 
of Greece, proceed in lengthened order, winding along 

de son front ce qui l'environne, les bras etendus comme pour embrasser 
cet espace immense dont il semble etre le roi ; les pieds fixes a cette 
vallee de larmes, la tete couronnee d'epines, emblemes des soucis rongeurs 
qui Paccompagnent jusque dans la tombe, voila Vliomme, ecce homo, voila 
l'adorable attitude de Thomme-dieu sur la terre. . . .Plus on medite, plus 
on se persuade que ce nest que par le supplice de la croix que Jesus Christ 
pouvait caracteriser en soi toutes les miseres et les transgressions humaines, 
les expier, les rocketer toutes, representer collectivement le genre humain, 
comme un seul etre," &c. Again, at p. 77 : — 46 C'est par la divine croix 
que s'opere perpetuellement ce miracle : signe de foi, d'araour et d'espe- 
rance, ce trophee de la mort est en meme terns le sanctuaire de la vie que 
notre pensee reclame au nom du mediateur eternel. Embleme de la force 
combinee a la resistance et remise en harmonie, la croix a rachete le passe ; 
elle a confondu la justice et la misericorde ; elle seule nous devoilera 
ravenir." 



32 



THE GREEK CHTJECH. 



the mountain side to some gloomy grotto of the Virgi 
or St. George, or St. Spiridion, in devout confidence th; 
vows, by such imposing solemnities enforced, will not 1 
offered up in vain. And it has not unfrequently ha] 
pened, that the operation of nature, by its spontaneoi 
coincidence with the effusion of such vows, has confirms 
the baseless faith from which they proceeded. Besid< 
these occasional solemnities, ordinary processions a] 
common in every part of Greece, in honour of martyi 
or saints, or the relics of saints. But the Holy Virgi] 
in spite of the little commendation she derives from pi< 
tural representation, is everywhere the favourite object < 
devotion ; and (if I mistake not) it is to celebrate h( 
majesty and deserve her protection, that the monks < 
Thessaly ascend, in annual procession, to the top < 
Olympus, and perpetuate the sanctity of that spot t 
song and worship. 

V. The services of the Greek Church are exceeding] 
long and tedious ; that most so, and also the most ancien 
is that of St. James, which was appointed by Crispu 
first bishop of Jerusalem, but is only used once a year, c 
October 23rd, the festival of the Saint. The next is th* 
of St. Basil, which is believed to have been composed aboi 
a.d. 370 ; but it is not now used except on the Sundays i 
Lent, and perhaps on one or two other occasions. It : 
superseded by that (falsely) ascribed to St. Chrysoston 
which has undergone, from time to time, a variety of alter* 
tions, as anything may have been altered, or innovated, c 
more distinctly defined in the doctrines of the Churcl 
But by the word Liturgy the Greeks understand only th 
Communion Service, and as to the rest, it varies on ever 
day in the year, and in every part of the day ; # so tl 
whole body of the services is sufficient to fill twenty foli 
volumes, besides one other similar volume, which contain 
directions for the use of the rest. To the study of thes 
books the learning and ability of the priest are usuail 
confined ; not with any view to comprehend the spiritu* 



* See Dr. King, p. 41. 



PERFORMANCE OP SERVICES. 



33 



port of their contents, bnt simply to acquire some 
ality in the art of adjusting to each day its peculiar 
*m of prayer ; and this is said to be a matter of so 
eat difficulty, that few ever succeed in perfectly attain- 
g it. 

Jj e f The Service is for the most part so executed as to be 
■ 3arlv, or entirely, inaudible to the congregation ; for it 
read in a low and hurried and indistinct voice, and a 
Tl reat part is directed to the east, in which it is not in- 
3nded that they should have any share. The origin of 
lis practice, .to us so offensive, is, of course, to be traced 
3 the establishment of the mediatory character in the 
J 'riesthood, as if their office were rather to pray for the 
>eople than with them. Thus we are not surprised to 
hid, that one of the most ancient appellations of Chris- 
;ian ministers in the East, was peo-Wui, mediators. The 
lame, indeed, they appear at present to have resigned, 
out they will long continue to cling to a character so 
closely connected with their authority. 

Besides the reproach of indistinctness and rapidity of 
utterance made almost necessary by the length of the 
services, the manner in which I have seen them per- 
formed is frequently indecent and impious. I have been 
present on occasions when the very semblance, not of 
devotion only, but even of dignity and gravity, has been 
thrown aside by the ministers ; and the elements which 
are ever received with the most profound piety, I have 
seen administered with a smile. But, strange as it may 
at first appear, this insulting indifference in the priest 
seems not at all to affect the religious feelings of the 
common people — perhaps, because those feelings are not 
founded on any sound principle, nor at all closely inter- 
woven with morality, or with the decencies of society — 
because reverence for the Church and its ministers stands 
so near to the bottom of faith, that a question touching 
the propriety of their conduct might seem to imply a 
doubt respecting the very essence and mysteries of reli- 
gion itself. 

This absence of devotion in the performance of the 



34 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



service is not compensated by any other description of 
religions instruction, for such we can hardly call the re- 
cital of the life * of some saint which usually follows the 
Liturgy. This practice has been naturally preserved, as 
the most direct method of exciting the attention and zeal 
of a credulous and impassioned people ; indeed, it forms 
a very consistent part of a system addressing itself not at 
all to the reason of men, but wholly to their imagination 
or their senses ; for to the ignorant mind a more imme- 
diate and vivid impression is conveyed by the violent 
narration of exaggerated acts or sufferings, than by any 
eloquence of precept or persuasion. But the conse- 
quences of this method of inspiring religious feeling have 
"been, the overthrow of everything that is rational in 
piety, and the introduction of whatever is most degrading 
in superstition. For, as the miraculous stories with 
which these lives abound are not more earnestly incul- 
cated by the priest than they are greedily devoured by 
the vulgar, so the habit of receiving, with unsuspecting 
confidence, the wildest fables of other days, begets in 
these an eager disposition to believe the present occur- 
ence of events so familiar to their credulity. The au- 
dacity of the priesthood is animated by the spiritual 
prostration of the people, and they fail not seasonably to 
satisfy the craving which they have excited by very gross 
and impudent impostures. 

There is one class of superstitious practices prevalent 
in every part of Greece, to which we need not do more 
than make allusion, because few or none of them origi- 
nate in any corruption of Christianity. The charm, the 
magical incantation, the votive and propitiatory offering, 
the (plxr^a, and the (px^ccKU, and similar usages, have 

* The "Tablet of the United Worthies " (Ulvai t&i/ 2wa|ap*W) 
contains three hundred and sixty-five of these lives, and satisfies the 
annual demand for marvellous falsehoods. Such is the spiritual nourish- 
ment most generally administered. Homilies on subjects of morality, as 
well as faith, have been occasionally delivered by those at the head of the 
Church, from the earliest age down, at least, to that of Cyril Lucar ; but 
such instructions have never reached the body of the people. 



MIEACLE OP ST. GEOEGE. 



35 



descended, like the statues and temples, as the remnants 
and memorials of antiquity. How far the priesthood 
may have found it expedient to encourage them, I know 
not ; but they have not the credit of their invention. 
But it may be useful to conclude this Chapter by one or 
two instances of those monstrous impostures which I 
have mentioned, which even exceed the corresponding 
absurdities of the Boman Church ; and I shall do so the 
more readily, because one such description is more ef- 
fectual in representing the religious debasement of a 
people, than many vague expressions of reproach or 
compassion. 

The miraculous exhibition which I shall first describe, 
is here represented, as I never happened myself to 
witness it, on the authority of Eicaut, and for the most 
part in his excellent language. It will appear to some 
to be of a nature so purely ludicrous, as scarcely to have 
any claim on serious attention. But there are those 
who find something sad in every spectacle of human 
degradation, and whose sadness is augmented and dark- 
ened when that degradation is exhibited in the dress of 
religion. And it is to such persons that the following 
description is addressed. 

The Greeks have divers chapels dedicated to St. George, 
amongst which, at an obscure village, called by the Turks 
Boschivi, not far from Magnesia, there is one, where, on 
the 23rd of April, they carry his picture in procession, 
accompanied by multitudes of Turks as well as Greeks, 
who resort thither, the first for pastime, the other for 
mirth, company, and devotion. The picture is about the 
size of a sign, " which we hang before a shop, and has 
about equal merit of execution. This picture, (they 
report, and many believe it, especially the women,) when 
carried by a sinner, is endowed with so much of the 
champion's courage, as severely to beat and chastise the 
back and shoulders of the bearer ; but it is more civil and 
mild to the innocent, or to the less scandalous rn the 
wickedness of life. I had once (says Eicaut) the cu- 

d 2 



36 



THE GKEEK CHTTKCH. 



riosity to see this exhibition : one of the papases took up 
the Champion on his shoulder, accompanied by two 
others of the like size ; with these all the company 
marched in procession with much quietness and gravity, 
until they came under a large plane tree, where were the 
ruins of an old chapel dedicated to this saint. Mass 
being here celebrated, the priests, returning to their ha- 
biliments, left the pictures to be carried home by the 
laity, when one, more forward than the rest, with fear 
and reverence, took the Champion on his shoulder, which 
at first began a little to move and turn itself, but at 
length came to downright blows, and beat the bearer to 
the earth. He was relieved by another, also a sinner, 
and then the other two pictures began the like rage, 
buffeting and beating those that carried them, with great 
tumult and confusion. This ridiculous piece of supersti- 
tion pleased the humour of the Greeks, and scandalised 
the enemies of our faith ; which, when I saw, I wondered 
at it, and blamed the remissness of the bishop, in pre- 
sence of the priests who managed the solemnity of the 
day. I asked one of them in private, whether they 
believed that the pictures were inspired with life and 
motion to beat sinners ; to which, making some pause, as 
unwilling to impose on one whom he guessed difficult to 
give credence to such matters, he answered that it was a 
thing doubtful and hard to be believed by any others than 
the vulgar sort. And on other occasions, discoursing 
with the prelates of this Church on the same subject, I 
seemed to be concerned and transported with some little 
passion, that, in the sight of Turks and infidels, they 
should give countenance to so great a cheat, to the dis- 
honour of our holy faith and gospel, which is supported 
on better foundation than on such idle and profane 
imaginations; to which they gave this answer, 'that 
custom had prevailed, and that for some ages this belief 
had taken so deep a root in the minds of the ignorant, 
that it was hard to undeceive them without dishonour to 
the saint, and danger to the whole fabric of the Christian 



JEETJSALE^I. 



37 



religion. Por this belief being equally fixed with the 
doctrines of necessary faith, the confutation of this one 
would bring the others into question, and perhaps per- 
suade the people that they were parting with the main 
principles of the gospel." 

Certainly, the most tedious and irritating of all con- 
flicts, is that which is waged by a more enlightened 
posterity against prejudices which have been inculcated 
by the folly or the iniquity of their ancestors ; and the 
difficulty of the contest is much increased, when the pre- 
judices are of a religious nature. But time and modera- 
tion and perseverance will triumph even over these ; and 
in this instance they will be aided by the natural 
intelligence of a people impatient to throw off the weight 
and reproach of ignorance. 

Another and more notorious display of superstition, 
which I propose to describe, leads us to the mention of 
Jerusalem ; and it may seenra strange circumstance and 
full of sorrowful reflection, that we should arrive, through 
the corruptions which dishonour our faith, at the earliest 
mention of its birth-place. And, indeed, it would truly 
appear to any one contemplating the present condition 
of Palestine, that it has been selected as a perpetual 
scene of the temporal retribution of Providence. In 
every feature of that desolate country, we read awful 
records of God's justice : like an afflicted and unre- 
pentant sinner, it presents a sullen and scathed brow, 
expressing the eternal alliance between guilt and misery. 
And if in vain imagination we cast our regards over the 
blasted wilderness in pursuit of any memorial of what is 
pure and wholesome in the religion of Christ ; if we 
would trace his holy footsteps and search for precious 
emblems of his actions and perfections, nowhere can we 
discover any monument of his beneficence and heavenly 
charity, of the blessings which He conferred, of the joy 
which He communicated by his power and his presence — 
No — but at every footstep we meet some object which 
recalls to us his passion and his agony ; his blood and 
his cross are everywhere forced on our recollection ; and 



38 



THE GKEEK CHURCH. 



the joy and the ardour which have hurried us to the 
birth-place of our Saviour are quenched in the melan- 
choly pilgrimage to his sepulchre. 

Whoever has chanced to pass, like myself, the Easter 
week at Jerusalem, has doubtless made the same reflec- 
tions, as he has beheld the same sad spectacle of madness 
and impiety. Scarcely a day passes during that festival 
undistinguished by some scandalous scene of fanaticism. 
But I shall here confine my description to the miracle 
of the Holy Eire, which I have selected, notwithstanding 
its greater notoriety, partly because it is held of such 
high importance as to be with many the principal object 
of pilgrimage, and partly because it is probably the 
grossest imposture at this moment practised by the im- 
pudence of any priesthood on the credulity of any people. 

Of the pilgrims who assemble every Easter at the Holy 
City, the largest and most ignorant portion are of the 
Greek and Armenian Churches : to these the Turks have 
committed the performance of the miracle ; the priests 
fail not to make some profit by their labours ; and the 
Turks, by their connivance, secure the double satisfaction 
of extorting the money and insulting the religion of 
Christians. 

The ceremony is performed on the Saturday, and the 
scene is the Holy Sepulchre and the little chapel an- 
nexed to it, which stands a separate building within the 
church on Mount Calvary. The fire which is therein 
miraculously kindled is intended to represent that which 
descended from Heaven at the prayers of Elijah. I 
shall transcribe the details nearly as I find them in my 
Journal. 

Jerusalem, April 21, 1821. 
This is called the Day of Charity; the doors are open 
both day and night, and free and gratuitous ingress is 
allowed to all ; so that by ten o'clock, a.m., an immense 
crowd was collected in the church and round the chapel 
of the Holy Sepulchre. In this strange assemblage we 
recognised the complexion and costume of every de scrip- 



MIEACLE OP THE HOLY FIEE. 



39 



tion of Christian : English, French, Lutherans, Italians, 
Greeks and Russians, Georgians, Circassians, Tartars, 
Armenians, Copts, Maronites, Druses, and the various 
tribes of Syrian Arabs, rushed together into one mass ; 
and to complete the iniiversal society, we were increased 
by the presence of an American and an Abyssinian. 

Ror what purpose was it that every Christian name 
was here collected round the Sepulchre of Christ? How 
were these pious pilgrims occupied at that time and on 
this spot ? They were collected for the purpose of wit- 
nessing either a miracle or the mockery of a miracle ; 
either a violation of the laws of nature by God, or the 
greatest insult which can be offered to God by man ; 
either a fire lighted by the immediate act of Heaven, or 
an act which seemed to call down fire from Heaven, to 
destroy the scene of such monstrous impiety. They 
were occupied during the awful interval, not in prayer 
or in any serious meditation, not even in crossing, or 
prostration, or any vain ceremony of worship. So far 
were they removed from any such feeling, that they 
selected that particular moment for indulgence in buf- 
fooneries and indecencies far surpassing the extravagance 
of any Italian carnival. They ran and dragged each 
other round the Sepulchre ; they mounted on each 
other's shoulders ; they built themselves up into pyra- 
mids ; they hung by their heels naked or half naked ; 
they performed the circuit of the holy chapel, tumbling 
like mountebanks. The shouts and the shrieks from so 
many voices in so many languages, sharpened with ori- 
ental shr illn ess, surpassed any idea that can be formed 
by the languid imaginations of the west. And the spec- 
tacle was rendered still more various, and the uproar 
more discordant, by the violent proceedings of the 
Turkish and Albanian soldiers, in their vain attempt to 
tranquillise fanaticism by blows. 

Presently we observed two priests, a Greek and an 
Armenian, enter the chapel of the Sepulchre ; the door 
was carefully closed after them, and strictly guarded by 

strong body of Turks. At this sight the impatience 



40 



THE GREEK CHTTECH. 



of the mob rather increased, and they rushed with more 
earnestness towards the walls of the chapel, every one 
with new torches or tapers in his hand, trimmed to 
receive the expected fire. There were two or three 
small orifices or windows in the walls, to which every 
eye was eagerly directed. But suspense was still some- 
what protracted ; for the Turkish governor, who takes 
especial delight in the miracle and always superintends 
its execution, was not yet arrived. 

The body of the church is overlooked by a gallery, 
which was occupied by Turks of distinction, by English 
and other travellers, by some Soman Catholics and 
several women, chiefly Armenians. These spectators 
contemplated the scene beneath them with great differ- 
ence of feeling. The Turks merely laughed with undis- 
guised and unmitigated contempt : a Protestant might 
smile or sigh, as ridicule or pity predominated ; but the 
memory of what he beheld could furnish matter for none 
but melancholy reflection. The Latins were sincerely 
indignant against the performance of a profitable impos- 
ture in which themselves had no share, and would will- 
ingly have counterfeited contempt, if they could have 
forgotten the blood of St. Januarius, and similar impieties 
of their own Church. The Armenian women sat expect- 
ing a real miracle, in unlimited, uncompromising faith and 
confidence. 

After the dispatch of more important business, the 
governor at length arrived and took his seat : every light 
had long ago been extinguished in every part of the 
church, and the storm beneath had been visited only by 
such glimpses of daylight as descended upon it, chiefly 
through the cupola, from a sky of the clearest blue and 
most heavenly tranquillity. Very soon afterwards we 
observed a glimmering through the orifices in the holy 
chapel ; it increased to a flame, and instantly became 
perceptible to the crowd. The shout which announced 
this event, the completion of the miracle, was the pre- 
lude to an exhibition of madness surpassing all that had 
preceded. The more zealous, or more vigorous, fanatics 



1EIBACLE OF THE HOLT FIEE. 



41 



pressed towards the chapel, that they might obtain a 
more genuine light b y the immediate application of their 
tapers to the divine fountain ; and the eagerness of 
those behind to participate, though less perfectly, in 
the blessing, brought on a struggle with those who were 
nearer the sanctuary, and who were anxious to carry 
away their own light lincontaminated ; but in tins they 
seldom succeeded ; and thus the fire was communicated 
with extreme rapidity, and in less than five minutes the 
whole church presented an uninterrupted blaze of several 
thousand tapers and torches. In the mean time the two 
priests, whose entrance has been mentioned, were carried 
out of the chapel on the shoulders of some favoured de- 
votees, either of them waving a celestial torch of the 
purest flame, which not one among the fanatic crowd 
either believed or suspected to be the creation of their 
own impious hands. 

This fact is made credible by the general history of 
superstition ; that which I am about to mention is even 
more extravagant but not less true. An opinion is uni- 
versally prevalent that the holy fire has no power to 
burn or injure ; and experiments of this quality are 
every year made by almost every pilgrim on his own 
person. All, of course, are singed and burnt and scarred ; 
and yet, whether it be that the energy of their enthusiasm 
repels or deadens the sense of pain, or that each man 
believes his own suffering to be an exception, in visita- 
tion perhaps of some secret and unconfessed sin, all 
persist in their original belief, and continue to proclaim 
with one voice, in defiance of truth and sense itself, the 
innocence of the holy flame. 

i As soon as they were wearied by these excesses they 
gradually retired and dispersed, in order to preserve the 
remains of their tapers by melting them on fragments of 
linen which they destined to be portions of their winding- 
sheet, and a passport to a better state of existence. The 
Turkish governor and the other spectators departed also ; 
and if the scene which we have witnessed were not 
such as to make Christianity respectable to the mind of 



42 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



a Mahometan, it was such, at least, as might teach a 
lasting lesson of moderation to a Protestant; it might 
teach him to compassionate the fanaticism from which he 
is so far removed ; and, by presenting to his actual obser- 
vation the wildest imaginable enormities practised in the 
name of Christ, it might teach him to overlook the 
narrow limits and scarcely perceptible shades which may 
happen to divide him from his neighbour ; it may teach 
him the exercise of charity towards trifling errors and 
partial deviations, by showing him how boundless is the 
field of superstition, and how frightful are the paths 
which perplex 'it. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ON THE MONASTIC SYSTEM. 

The monastic life, which arose out of the melancholy 
fanaticism of Egypt and Syria, could present no natural 
attraction to the restless vivacity of the Greek ; in fact 
almost every quality that is truly genuine and national 
in the composition of his character must have revolted 
against the innovation. # Yet, from the love of change, 
from the love of the marvellous, from the force of ex- 
ample, from the weight of authority, the system soon 
took root everywhere, and made considerable progress, 
without, however, attaining that predominance which it 
achieved in other countries, both of the east and west. 

* It was natural to apprehend that the great prevalence of monkery in 
any country would, in some degree, influence the national character, by the 
partial diffusion of its peculiar views, habits, and principles. But it has 
produced no such effect in Greece, nor has it deadened one fibre of the 
moral frame of that people. Indeed, the inmates of some of the larger 
convents have fewer monastic peculiarities and much more worldly 
sagacity and knowledge than it is easy at first to account for. But 
besides the singular tact and native penetration of the Greek, a reason 
for this may be found in the constitution of the system : for as it con- 
tains no distinct order of mendicants, and yet is not insensible to the 
profitable merits of mendicity, the members of each convent are succes- 
sively deputed to this office ; and thus there are many among them who 
at one time or other have travelled to some distance from their cells and 
taken some part in the intercourse of society. 



44 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



A very refined principle has been discovered to justify 
the monachism of the East. The hermit, the original 
and genuine monk, considered himself as a being self- 
devoted to the curse of Grod, for the sake of his brethren 
who remained exposed to the storms and temptations of 
the world. # Animated by this generous motive, and full 
of the • pious ardour which alike occasioned and ^resulted 
from it, he retired to some rngged grotto in the moun- 
tain side, which he sanctified by his solitnde, his aus- 
terities, and his martyrdom. Bub it was soon discovered 
that this expiation could be made as effectually by social 
as by individual seclusion ; and then these holy persons 
assembled in desolate places, and foruided large commu- 
nities of voluntary victims, offering in themselves an im- 
maculate sacrifice for the sins of man. In what manner 
the morality of mankind was affected by the belief that 
the virtues of the innocent were ever ascending to 
Heaven as a perpetual atonement for the sins of the 
wicked, we need not inquire ; and it is equally certain 
that it became the interest of the rich and worldly to 
increase the number, if they could not always secure the 
purity, of these victims, so that the mass of expiatory 
piety might bear a constant proportion to the increase of 
their own crimes. 

Founded on this principle, (which M. Stourdza tells us 
was the only principle of their foundation,) monastic 
institutions spread widely and rapidly through the East ; 
and there were not wanting anywhere either fanatics 
who shared in the superstitions they created, or hypo- 
crites who were willing to profit by them. Spacious 
buildings were accordingly erected in healthy and im- 
posing situations, and the ease and conveniences which 
they offered multiplied the number of their inhabitants. 

Another circumstance which tended to their increase 

* " A etre anatheme pour leurs freres demeures en proie aux orages et 
tentations." — Stourdza. And again: — " L'Institution des ordres monas- 
tiques n'est fondee que sur Tidee fondamentale d'une expiation volontaire 
d'un innocent pour le coupable." 



THE MONASTIC SYSTEM. 



45 



and conservation, was the sanctity with which they were 
invested, as well by the authority of the Government as 
by the superstition of the people. 

Under the disturbed and feeble sway of the later em- 
perors, the respect for these sacred places grew more 
prevalent, as the laws had less force ; for it supplied in 
many cases the place of law. After the fall of the em- 
pire, from the earliest period of Turkish rule, the Porte 
displayed the refinement of its political ingenuity, in 
making use of the Greek clergy as one instrument to 
govern the Greek peopla. The result of this measure 
was at least beneficial to the clergy themselves, and to 
all their religious establishments ; and thus the sanctity 
of a Christian monastery was maintained,^ in every cir- 
cumstance of Mahometan despotism. Despotism, by 
this concession, must have suffered some degree of miti- 
gation, since there existed any asylum which it dared 
not violate ; and to us it is a grateful and consoling 
office, to trace any useful purpose to which Providence 
has been pleased to turn the perversity of man, deriving 
even from his superstitions some instrument to benefit 
or to correct him. 

The convents of the East were not peopled only by 
the indolent or the fanatic ; the law which excluded the 
secular clergy from the highest offices in the church 
opened their gates to ecclesiastical ambition. The 
monastery was the only school for bishops and patri- 
archs ; and to the narrow education there received, we 
may undoubtedly attribute much of the selfish and 

* Proofs of the general truth of this, in spite of occasional exceptions, 
may be found in most of the books of Oriental Travellers. During Dod- 
well's residence at Athens, the Turkish Disdar having incurred, by a 
gross indiscretion, the anger of his fellow-countrymen, took refuge in a 
Christian convent. Even during the fury of the present Revolution, we 
learn that the convent of St. Luke, on Mount Helicon, was spared by the 
Mahometan soldiers, who gained temporary possession of it. After they 
had retired, the monks returned and found over the principal gate an in- 
scription to this purport : " The Albanians in the Mussulman army have 
prevented the Turks from destroying this convent, because they hold it 
sacred, and have frequently used it as an asylum" 



46 



THE GrEEEK CHTTBCH. 



passionate bigotry, which disgraced for above ten cen- 
turies the hierarchy of the East. But the institutions 
themselves failed not to derive advantage from the 
honours, the virtues, and even the vices of those whom 
they had sent forth to dignity ; and to this class of their 
members was generally confined whatsoever learning or 
skill in theology had been taught within the walls. No 
circumstance has contributed so much as this to the 
maintenance of the 'monastic order in the Greek 
Church. 

Some of the most beautiful spots in Greece have 
been chosen for the situation of convents. In deep and 
secluded glens on the mountain's side, among trees 
of luxuriant foliage nourished by perennial waters, 
removed by the same elevation above the noisy disputes 
of the villagers and the noxious exhalations of the plains, 
the caloyer has little of earthly care or apprehension to 
divert his thoughts from the object they profess to pro- 
secute ; and if it be true (and there are few who have 
not sometimes felt it true), that it is useful and whole- 
some to the mind and character, that it enlightens our 
virtue and even animates our piety, calmly to contem- 
plate the majestic expression of nature, and to dwell 
upon her beauty and sublimity, we shall willingly believe 
that the inmate of a Grecian convent may derive from 
the scenery that surrounds him an additional motive to 
religious meditation.^ 

But I make no doubt that it was the salubrity of 
these situations which in the first instance recommended 
them, rather than their beauty ; for I cannot perceive 
that the Greeks, in any age or state of society, have paid 
to the natural magnificence of their country the ad- 
miration which it deserves ; but to a stranger meditating 
the monastic f edifices of romantic Attica, Daphne and 

* M. Stourdza mentions with some admiration, the reply of a Russian 
monk to the traveller who ventured ignorantly to inquire, to what boohs 
his solitary studies were directed : " 11 montra pour toute response, la 
terre et les cieux." 

+ It has been observed, that these buildings are frequently found on 



THE MONASTIC SYSTEM. 



47 



Careas, Asomatos and Sudani, or gazing on the grotesque 
wonders of ]\Iegaspelia, or on those more attractive 
buildings which crown the iEgsean islands, Tenos, or 
Paros, or Xaxos, or the desolate Scio, it is hard indeed to 
believe that the " religion of the place " is nnfelt by its 
inhabitants alone, and that the noblest spectacle on earth 
is presented to their hourly contemplation in vain. 

The monks consist partly of caloyers or priests, and 
partly of lay -brethren. The employments of the former 
are of a nature wholly religions, and they rival in se- 
verity and inutility the labours of a Latin convent. 
Exery day in Lent, the caloyers read over the whole 
Psalter once with the Gloria Patri, and three Metaniae 
after every fourth Psalm and four at the end of 
every tenth. The Metania consists in bowing and kiss- 
ing the ground three times, and the number of these 
must be completed to 300 in the course of twenty-four 
hours. In this occupation, the first two hours of the 
night, and the two immediately following midnight, are 
devoted. Matins begin at four in the morning, and 
last till dawn of day. The execution of the tedious 
liturgy is followed by the recitation of the life of some 
saint or hermit ; and of the nine hymns which follow, 
six are addressed to the Virgin, and three to the tutelary 
saint of the place, or of the day. 

During the intervals, however, between the numerous 
fasts of the church, the duties of the caloyer admit of 
considerable relaxation, and we may believe that the 
holy festivals are not celebrated with coldness or indif- 
ference, even in the bosom of the monasteries. 

The domestic drudgery and other worldly affairs of 
the convent are committed to the lay-brethren. They 
tend the cattle, and cultivate with their own hands the 
corn-fields, the vineyards and the olive-grounds ; they 
collect or sell the produce, and so supply the human 
wants of their spiritual brothers, as to remove them as 
far as possible from all earthly contamination. Por it 

the site, and even partly constructed from the materials of ancient temples 
or sacella. 



48 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



was forgotten in the specious theory of monaehism, 
that it is this very contact with earth which gives the 
strength to spring to Heaven; that it is from this very soil 
of stains and pollutions, that our energies and our vir- 
tues are derived, and that it would be wicked, if it were 
possible, for any man to avoid the world who is gifted 
with the means to improve it. 

The extent of the revenues enjoyed by the monastic 
order in Greece cannot be assigned with any certainty ; 
they vary extremely in different provinces, and according 
to the caprices of an avaricious despotism. I have seen 
many convents which seem to justify by the show of 
misery the lamentations of their inhabitants ; others, 
again, have some appearance of comfort and abundance ; 
but the most opulent among them bear no comparison 
with the monasteries of Italy and Sicily in display or in 
reality of wealth. There are twenty convents on Mount 
Athos possessing extensive lands and forming the me- 
tropolis of Oriental monaehism: yet from these united 
the Turkish Government extorts no larger tribute than 
a thousand dollars a month, or about £2,500 a-year; 
and as this fact must prove either poverty in the subject 
or moderation in the Government, we need not hesitate to 
acquiesce in the former belief. Dr. Clarke has given us 
a melancholy description of the condition of Samos : he 
tells us that the whole island, being about eighty-seven 
miles in circumference, contains only 18,000 inhabitants, 
and that it is entirely in the hands of the Church. 
" The swarm of caloyers and Greek papas have made a 
desert of this fine island, where all the qualifications 
necessary for a priest, and to live by the industry of 
others, is the talent of being able to repeat mass after 
memory. The Bishop of Samos, who is also Bishop of 
INicaria, enjoys an annual income of 2,000 crowns, and 
derives considerable additional revenue from services 
rendered to the islanders in blessing their water and 
their cattle in the month of May." To this supremacy 
of the priesthood the traveller attributes the falling off 
from the ancient population and fertility of the island. 



UNITY OF THE MONASTIC SYSTEM. 



49 



I know not whence Dr. Clarke received this informa- 
tion, or after what scrupulousness of examination he 
published it ; but I know, that, in the resurrection of 
Greece, Samos was among the first " to cast away her 
shroud;" that — standing alone in the very front of 
battle — she repelled some of the fiercest assaults of 
the enemy, and that the life and vigour which she re- 
sumed in 1821, she retains unviolated to this moment ; 
and I will not omit this occasion to express my hope, 
that, whensoever the affairs of the East shall be finally 
arranged, Samos will be comprehended in the Hellenic 
republic. 

The circumstances, which gave birth to that variety* of 
religious orders which infest some Eoman Catholic 
countries, have not existed in the Eastern Church ; so 
that the ancient unity of the institution still subsists 
without any deviation from the original simplicity of 
practice. t The same rule, the same forms and cere- 
monies of worship are everywhere observed, and the 
veneration for antiquity has preserved at least the sem- 
blance of fraternity and concord. The Greeks are ex- 
tremely proud of this adhesion to ancient custom, and 
their freedom from the Popish corruptions. But a 
Protestant will, perhaps, consider the successive intro- 
duction of new orders into the Eoman Church as the 
consequence rather than the cause of corruptions, which 
had already grown out of other events and accidents, 
ecclesiastical and political, that had not disturbed the 
Church of Greece. He will rather consider it as an at- 
tempt, not only to raise up fresh soldiers for the banners 
of popery, but also to restore the primitive severity of 
monastic discipline, relaxed by every form of vice and 
debauchery. But the remedy had no other effect than 
to hasten the progress of a malady already incurable, 
and to accelerate the certain hour of reformation. 

On the other hand, the monasteries of the East, how- 

* M. Stourdza (p. 145) enumerates with great ardour the evils which 
have arisen from the multiplication of the monastic orders in the West ; 
and at the head of the list he is so impartial as to place the Reformation I 

T Stourdza says that, were St. Basil himself to reappear among the 
monks, he would recognize all as his children. 

E 



50 



THE GKEEK CHUKCH. 



ever far they may have receded from the purity of the 
principle on which they were founded, fell at no period 
so low in sensuality as those of the Boman Church. The 
epoch of their deepest moral degradation was probably 
the period immediately preceding the Turkish conquest. 
But there were circumstances, even then, which preserved 
them from entire debasement. The natural abstemious- 
ness of Orientals, # if it diminishes the fancied merit of 
their fasts, exempts them, at least, from the reproach 
of what is most gross in sensuality. Another reason 
will be found in their form of Church government, 
which was neither in its principle purely despotic, nor 
in its operation tolerant of every abuse which might be 
connected with the maintenance of sacerdotal authority. 
A third, and still more powerful reason may be, that the 
Greek convents never reached that splendour of lux- 
urious opulence which adorned the lordly hierarchy of 
the West. These and other causes have contributed to 
save the Church of Greece from the disgrace and the 
misfortunes which have afflicted and, to a certain extent, 
corrected her rival. "With all the follies and all the sins 
which stain her history ; with all the dissensions which 
have torn her bosom so prolific of heresy, she was out- 
stripped by her competitor in the race of corruption, and 
her downward course was not, perhaps, run when she 
was delivered into the hands of the Mussulman. The 
loss of independence, which imposed foreign restraint 
upon her conduct, was at least favourable to her mo- 
rality ; the loss of part of her property diminished the 
temptation and the means of sin ; the loss of her learn- 
ing, which had so seldom been founded on any good 
principle or applied to any useful purpose, secured to 
her a kind of inanimate tranquillity. And thus it is that 
she has subsisted and subsists under the Turkish Govern- 
ment, equally exempt from any dangerous vice or any 
active virtue. 

* This reason acquires more weight than we might otherwise be dis- 
posed to allow to it, from the fact that the convents of Russia, before 
their reformation, are described to have rivalled in vulgar profligacy the 
most degraded orders of the Roman Church. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ON THE SECULAR CLERGY, AND THE GOVERNMENT 
OF THE CHURCH. 

The Greek Church permits to its secular clergy the 
enjoyment of marriage, with the restrictions that the 
priest shall marry once only a virgin, and that, before ordi- 
nation. He can aspire to no higher dignity than that of 
proto-papas, because the possession of the first offices is 
confined, as we have already mentioned, to the monastic 
order : for # " the orthodox Church regards her bishops as 
holocausts smoking on the high places," an atonement for 
the sins of her children ; and she believes that the holi- 
ness of the sacrifice can only be perfected by celibacy. 

The situation of the secular clergy in the East is in 
general humble enough. Taken from the lowest orders, 
and little improved by a most imperfect education, they 
associate with the common people as companions rather 
than instruct or s,f and their condition is almost equalised 
by the poverty which is common to all. Their subsist- 
ence is chiefly derived from the fees which they are able 
to collect for the performance of the occasional services 

* This is the expression of M. Stourdza. 

i* I have seen them engaged with their fellow-labourers at the harvest, 
and have been assured that they are generally hired at lower wages than 
the peasants, owing to their inferiority in skill or industry. 

E 2 



52 



THE GEEEK CHUECH. 



of religion ; and as it generally happens that the bargain 
must be made before the ceremony begins, and as a bar- 
gain in Greece is seldom unattended by some violence of 
feeling and expression, it is hard to conceive how serious 
respect can be felt by the people, either for the person 
of the vender, or even for the ceremony so directly and 
indecently retailed to them ; yet respect is felt for both. 

We are informed that the secular clergy of Russia were 
disgraced, before the Reformation of Peter the Great, by 
every description of vulgar sensuality ; but in Greece, at 
this moment, though it is usual for travellers to inveigh 
against the gross and gluttonous habits of a Greek priest, 
I am very far from believing that the lower orders of the 
clergy at all deserve the charge of immorality. On the 
contrary, I feel assured that there are many among them, 
as I know that there are some, whose poverty is not dis- 
graced by avarice, whose ignorance is made attractive by 
simplicity, and who have found, even in an imperfect form 
of Christianity, many incentives to virtue and many mo- 
tives to piety. 

In general, the revenues of the Greek Church are 
scanty and precarious. The original and fixed endow- 
ment of the Patriarchate has fallen for the most part into 
the hands of the Turks, either by confiscation or by debt ; 
for it has been a part of the policy of the Porte to ad- 
vance occasional loans to the Church at high interest, 
which it rigidly exacts — so as to appropriate a great pro- 
portion of the income, and to establish an increasing 
claim on the principal, of the church property. I have 
been assured, that, during the last few years, this debt 
has rather increased than diminished. * The Patriarch 
succeeds to the property of archbishops and bishops, and 
even of those priests who die childless, and this is said to 
be the most productive source of his revenue. Occa- 
sional contributions are levied on the faithful, whenever 
the election of a new Patriarch, or the necessities of the 
Church, or the caprice of the Turk, may furnish a pretext 

* According to Ricaut, (page 98,) in 1672, it amounted to 350,000 
dollars. 



EEVENTTES AKD aOVER^MElSTT OE THE CHTTBCH. 53 

or a reason. A bishop derives his revenue partly from 
such ecclesiastical endowments as may still exist in his 
diocese, and partly from collections in kind made under 
the name of free-offerings at his visitations, which usually 
take place twice a year. Several of the monasteries are 
taxed at the rate of a dollar annually for every caloyer, 
in additional aid of the episcopal state, which at last is 
very poorly supported. Respecting the maintenance of 
the lower orders of the clergy, enough has already been 
said to prove its insufficiency ; and from this hasty glance 
at the resources of the different branches of the ecclesi- 
astical establishment of Greece, it would appear that the 
revenues of the convents are those best secured and least 
subject to caprice or accident. Indeed, though very far 
removed from splendour or superfluity, they seem quite 
sufficient for the decent support of the order which enjoys 
them. And thus it happens that the least useful mem- 
bers of the religious community — those who least contri- 
bute to the instruction, or improvement, or happiness of 
the people, those whose very existence is the mere work 
of the imagination of man — enjoy some temporal advan- 
tage over those who labour, not always ineffectually, and 
who owe their institution to the wisdom and beneficence 
of G-od. 

The government of a Christian church, of which the 
actual head is a Mahometan, would scarcely be a subject 
of serious inquiry, were it not that the Porte has con- 
stantly maintained the original form of its constitution ; 
and that, in the prospect of any sort of reformation in 
any form of Christianity, the government generally pre- 
sents the greatest obstacles to alteration, as it is often the 
most faulty part of the system. Eut it will appear that 
such is by no means the case in the present instance. 

The Greek Church is governed by four Patriarchs, # 
those of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alex- 
andria ; the last three are equal and independent ; but 
they acknowledge the superior dignity of the other, and 



* The Metropolitan or Patriarch of Russia is a more recent addition. 



54 



TIIE GEEEK CHTJECH. 



his authority so far, that nothing important can be under- 
taken in the regulation of spiritual affairs without his 
consent. The Patriarch of Constantinople is elected, by 
plurality of votes, by the metropolitan and neighbouring 
bishops, and presented to the Sultan for institution ; this 
favour is seldom refused if he bring with him the usual 
presents, which have varied, according to the varieties of 
wealth or avarice, from 20,000 to 30,000 dollars, But 
having conceded this formality in the election, the Sultan 
retains the unmitigated power of deposition, banishment, 
or execution. Even the paltry exaction on institution 
has been found motive sufficient for the exertion of that 
power ; and it has sometimes happened that the Patri- 
arch, on some trifling dispute, has been obliged to pur- 
chase his confirmation in office. This last possesses the 
privilege (in name rather than in reality) of nominating 
his brother Patriarchs ; and, after their subsequent elec- 
tion by the bishops of their respective Patriarchates, of 
confirming the election ; but the barat # of the Sultan is 
still necessary to give authority both to themselves and 
even to every bishop whom they may eventually appoint 
in the execution of their office. The election of the other 
Patriarchs, as they are further removed from the centre 
of oppression, is less restrained, and their deposition less 
frequent. But this comparative security is attended by 
little power or consequence ; and two at least of the 
three are believed to number very few subjects who 
remain faithful to the orthodox Church. 

The Patriarch of Antioch has two rivals who assume 
the same name and dignity, the one as the head of the 
Monophysites or Jacobites ; the other of the Maronites, 
who appear to acknowledge the supremacy rather than 
the doctrines of the Pope, and are said to receive from 
Borne, not only their spiritual instructor, but the tem- 
poral reward of their submission. The Maronite resides 
at Damascus ; but the most numerous sect is the Jaco- 

* Some of the words of the firman run thus: 64 I command you to go 
and reside as bishop at the Isle of , according to the ancient cus- 
tom and to the vain ceremonies of the inhabitants, &e." 



THE rOUE PATBIAECHS. 



55 



bite ; and perhaps its zeal may have been further ani- 
mated by the vicinity of some few Churches, which still 
respect the opinions and the misfortunes of JNfestorius. 

The Copts, who form the great majority of Egyptian 
Christians, have also embraced the Monophysite heresy 
and obey their own Patriarch ; and we have strong as- 
surances that the Church of Abyssinia is of the same per- 
suasion, 5 ^ and acknowledges the same head. The few who 
are still faithful to the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria are 
chiefly found in the villages or capital of Lower Egypt. 

The Patriarch of Jerusalem has suffered somewhat 
less from heresy and apostasy than either of his two 
compeers. In 1672, at the council assembled at Jerusa- 
lem by Dositheus against the doctrines of Cyril Lucar, 
the confession of the Patriarch was signed by seventy 
clergy residing in his own patriarchate. The influence 
of these holy persons may have been confined to narrow 
limits and few followers, and we cannot doubt their gen- 
eral poverty and ignorance ; but their mere existence 
proves that the authority of the Church found some re- 
spect in the districts which they represented. 

Prom this brief sketch we may perceive, in the first 
place, that the hopes and principal energies of the Greek 
Church are confined to the patriarchate of Constantino- 
ple ; and next (which is more to our present purpose), 
that even within those limits the Patriarch has little means 
of exerting any vigorous or independent control. It is 
true, that in the distant provinces among the lowest 
classes, there may sometimes be found a veneration for 
the name almost superstitious ; but in his capital, the in- 
trigues of jealous and ambitious prelates and the watch- 
ful avarice of the Sultan provide him much more matter 

* On the walls of the ruined churches which are found scattered along 
the banks of the Nile, in the lower parts of Ethiopia, where the Koran 
at present entirely prevails, I have often discerned painted figures of St. 
George, the favourite saint of the Greek Church. But this does not prove 
the orthodoxy of those churches; for the saints and ceremonies, and 
even the spirit of the mother church, were for the most part retained by 
her schismatics. 



56 



THE GrEEEK CHTJECH. 



for terror than for pride. In as far as the G-overnment 
sustains him, and the people are ignorant and servile, he 
is powerful ; in as far as he is poor and resourceless, and 
an occasional instrument in the oppression of the people, 
he has little influence or authority even over the lowest. 
The same causes enfeeble his exertions even in matters 
purely ecclesiastical. His bishops, his priesthood, and 
his monasteries are not united to him by any uni- 
form system of spiritual discipline ; and if the mass 
be indeed animated by one heart and one spirit, it is not 
a spirit either proceeding from the palace of the Patriarch, 
or identifying the existence of the Church with his person 
or his dignity. On the other hand, we should remark 
that the same circumstances which have rendered him 
weak and destitute of power to do much good, have also 
deprived him of the energy to do any evil. 

These remarks enable us first to observe, in continua- 
tion of our comparison of the Greek and Latin Churches, 
how complete is the contrast between the actual condition 
of the Patriarch and that of the Pope. Divided by the 
narrow Adriatic, on the one side we see wealth, preten- 
sion, and the assumption of temporal power ; on the other, 
poverty, insecurity, and helpless dependence. We next 
perceive, with respect to the system of government in 
either case, — as that of Rome is still distinguished by an 
active and patient discipline, which studies to attach the 
ministers to each other and the people to the ministry, 
and which has been directed zealously and sedulously 
through above twelve centuries to that object; so the 
other would rather deserve the contrary reproach of 
looseness, and incoherence, and insubordination. It is 
easy to say, that such is the necessary consequence of its 
subjection to foreign oppression, and that a body which 
has been deprived of the power of independent action 
will lose its internal energies with its power. This is 
true ; but if we refer to the earlier history of that 
Church, and trace it from the days of Constantine to 
those of Palseologus, we shall not find that it was at any 
period animated by that deliberate spirit of domination, 



IjStlttEjS'ce or the peiesthood. 



57 



which marked the progress and which marks the decay 
of Borne. 

For, in the first place, the Patriarch of the East has at 
no time affected temporal sovereignty, nor claimed any 
authority over princes ; and as he has not arrogated the 
lofty character of the Eoman, he has not been compelled 
to establish any system, or commit any crimes to preserve 
it. Therefore the privileges of the clergy of Greece con- 
tinue nearly in their original condition ; and the monastic 
order escaped the various corruptions which overspread it 
in the West, as soon as it became useful to the ambition, 
and necessary to the despotism of the popes. Again ; the 
entire subjection of the lower orders to spiritual authority 
has never become so absolute a church maxim in the East 
as under popish rule ; or, if the principle be common 
to both Churches, at least it has not been carried into 
effect there with so much deliberate industry. In these 
and in other points their characters have been widely 
different, from the moment that either can be said to have 
assumed a distinct character ; and as that of Greece has 
generally been free from the restlessness which has ha- 
bitually agitated the other, it is exempt also from the 
systematic innovations which have thus been successively 
introduced, not into the doctrines only, but into the go- 
vernment and discipline of the Latin Church. 

Yet, having many means in their power to obtain that 
spiritual influence, of all others most flattering to the pride 
of man, assuredly the Greek clergy have not neglected to 
use them. The authority of fanciful eloquence over a pas- 
sionate and enthusiastic audience ; the terror of excom- 
munication on minds by nature prone to superstitious 
fear ; the daily infliction of auricular confession on the 
prostrate spirit of the penitent, — these are engines of 
despotism which cannot safely be entrusted to anything 
human, and which were abused through a succession of 
ages by the clergy of Greece. But the influence thus 
usurped was in fact usurped by the clergy (if I may use 
the distinction) rather than by the Church ; it was created 
by the individual exercise of power rather than by the 



58 



THE GrEEEK CHURCH. 



premeditation of the government ; it was exerted for the 
gratification of personal or professional pride, not for the 
support of a deliberate scheme of ecclesiastical domina- 
tion : and it was therefore neither so pervading in its 
consequences, nor in its nature so permanent. 

Wherefore, while the influence of the priesthood in 
Greece may have been efficient in preserving the people 
faithful to the religion of their ancestors, I must express 
my dissent from those who represent it as vast and un- 
limited ; and in support of this, without appealing to 
the uncertain results of personal observation, I should 
first refer to the poverty of most of the secular clergy, 
which raises them little above the level of the lowest pea- 
sants ; and next to their ignorance, which leaves them 
nearly where their poverty has placed them. Such per- 
sons must possess very limited authority beyond the 
routine of their professional duties. The monastic clergy 
are little more enlightened than the others, but they pos- 
sess one advantage in this — that they are not dependent 
on the justice or charity of the people for the supply of 
their daily necessities ; and they have, moreover, the 
means to acquire, in their retirement, a higher reputation 
for sanctity. Their influence is, therefore, more consider- 
able, and, as far as concerns ecclesiastical matters, the 
attendance on confession, the observance of fasts and 
feasts and other affairs of equal spiritual importance, it 
may be nearly absolute ; but I am much mistaken if the 
power possessed by the Greek clergy, even over the most 
credulous of their adherents, be either so various in its 
objects, or so searching in its nature, or so extensive in 
its operation, as that exercised by the Roman Catholic 
priesthood in Spain, in Italy, or even in Ireland. 

I account for this fact by considering that the religious 
body last mentioned is not only more generally enlight- 
ened and more carefully educated, but also educated on 
a system, of which the principal object is the acquisi- 
tion of popular influence. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ON TOLERATION. 

M. de Stotjedza has consecrated an entire chapter to 
the praises of Toleration, which he considers as one of 
the noblest characteristics of the Greek Church. It is 
some merit even to have claimed this virtue ; and we 
become curious to learn how far its principles are in- 
telligible to a Greek, and on what foundation he fixes 
them. In the pages which contain them we discover 
much sense and truth, perplexed by many mystical ab- 
surdities. After some abstract reasoning on the nature 
of Toleration, the writer divides it into three kinds, ec- 
clesiastical, political, and individual. Under the first of 
these heads we find the following sentiments : " Par 
from perpetually soliciting the support of the secular 
power to suppress the errors of opinion, the Church 
ought rather to study to disarm that power, and not to 
allow its holy cause to be made a pretext for projects of 
passion or ambition. An ecclesiastical police is only 
useful and legitimate when it confines itself to the re- 
pression of actual abuses, scandals, and deviation from 
public morals. Prom the moment that it endeavours to 
inculcate abstract truths otherwise than by words, the 
Church not only loses sight of the object of its anxiety, 
but also degrades the dignity of man, materialises intel- 
ligence, and dethrones the Divinity," &c. " The Church 



60 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



should not be governed by the passions which control 
individuals." 

Under the division of political toleration, the most 
important passage is the following: — " The forms of 
government admit endless variety ; the object of govern- 
ment is always one — the security, welfare, confidence, and 
stability of the social edifice. Now, these results are all 
incompatible with intolerance. There is no security 
when the secrets of the conscience are exposed to the 
misinterpretation of informers ; there is no welfare when 
the peaceable exercise of worship, the bonds of affinity 
among families, the intercourse of commerce, the objects 
of emulation, are constrained, disorganised, shackled, and 
disputed by intolerance. There is no confidence when 
there is no indulgence and security, and when dissimu- 
lation becomes a duty ; there is no stability when inter- 
ests are divided, when a part is placed on its guard 
against the whole, when low and servile views are direct- 
ed against the independence and good faith of the citi- 
zens." On the third subject, that of individual 

tolerance, after claiming the universal right of private 
opinion, the writer proceeds to assert, that " persuasion is 
as reprehensible as violence, except in the extraordinary 
case of a visible vocation from heaven, or of a ministry 
authorised by the law." # The sentiments which I have 
quoted, however familiar most of them may be to the 
heart of every Protestant, were rather to have been 
desired than expected from the pen of a Greek, and we 
receive them with joy and hope, in full and perfect 
assurance that the Church which is inspired by them 
must already be very far removed from utter degradation. 

Indeed, in pursuance of this subject, while comparing 
his own with the Latin Church, M. de Stourdza does not 
hesitate to adduce toleration as the test and touchstone 
of truth, the visible sign of uncorrupted antiquity and 
divine protection. " JNTo other characteristic is so avail- 
able or so admissible to impartial eyes ; for inasmuch as 

* This very broad principle is probably advanced in justification of the 
expulsion of the Jesuits from Russia, in 1719. 



EGMAK CATHOLIC CHUECH. 



61 



it is true that the union of all Christian communions 
around the sepulchre of Christ is a spectacle conducive 
to the propagation of his worship, so is it absolutely 
certain that the view of the flames of the Inquisition can 
make but apostates and infidels." As impartial spec- 
tators of this controversy, we are, indeed, ready to 
admit the force of that characteristic, and to acknow- 
ledge the truth of the remarks which follow : for by 
whatever arguments the Church of Rome may have de- 
fended her own opinions, she has certainly never affected 
any respect or indulgence for the opinions of others. 
But we should here deliberately remark, that it is not 
from her doctrines but from her government that all her 
worst principles have proceeded ; it is not because she 
believes in the mediation of the saints, or in the real 
presence, that she has been sanguinary and persecuting, 
but because the despot who presides over her has claimed 
the spiritual dominion of the universe; and those who have 
suffered from her barbarity have not suffered through any 
inherent qualities or necessary influence of the opinions 
which they have rejected, but because the rejection of 
those opinions included a denial of the pope's supremacy 
and contempt of his authority. 

This is a very common truth, yet it may not be unpro- 
fitable to repeat it ; because many Protestants are in the 
habit of transferring to the tenets of the Roman Catholics 
the dislike which they feel for their Church, and of attri- 
buting our mutual want of confidence to doctrinal differ- 
ences. And even the most pious persons sometimes for- 
get that there is no peculiarity in the religious opinions 
of a Catholic which can reasonably subject him to our 
dislike or suspicion ; nothing which unfits him for the 
discharge of every social duty and every Christian virtue ; 
nothing which should prevent us from courting his friend- 
ship and confiding in his integrity. The causes which 
have divided us, and which may still, perhaps, for gene- 
rations suspend our perfect harmony, have an origin 
purely human ; the seeds were sown in avarice and am- 
bition, and the harvest of oppression and intolerance has 



62 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



been gathered in ; and when the hatred which has been 
excited by the acts of the Roman hierarchy shall have 
passed away with its power and arrogance, it will be 
acknowledged that its mere doctrines contain no element 
dangerous to society, or degrading to the moral character 
of those who profess them. 

These considerations may tend to correct the feelings 
which some are still disposed to indulge towards their 
Roman Catholic brethren ; and there is also one piece of 
instruction which we may all derive from them, — that, as 
any danger to be apprehended from popery springs from 
its practical, not its speculative, errors, and as those are of 
human imposition and invention and therefore liable to 
change and reformation from human accidents, we need 
not despair that those perishable appendages will some 
day fall away, and thus remove every motive of distrust 
even from the most timid mind. 

Among those countries which have set the example of 
enlightened toleration, M. de Stourdza has not omitted 
the mention of England ; and it is at this point indeed 
where the principles of the Church of Greece have the 
closest contact with our own ; and whatsoever claims to 
truth or orthodoxy or divine protection she rests on this 
foundation, we are worthy to divide, as we are unwilling 
to dispute, them with her. "We believe, indeed, that 
universal unanimity on religious points can never be 
attained by man, and what is unattainable we know to be 
unnecessary ; but we do not rend the garment because 
its colours are various or its texture unequal. We look 
down upon the many forms of Christianity which surround 
us, and we see that the matters on which we differ are 
sometimes few in number and not always essential in 
importance ; while the path which we are endeavouring 
to trace, with whatsoever inequality of knowledge or dili- 
gence, the object to which our eyes and exertions are 
alike directed, is one and the same to each and to all 
of us. And in this consideration we forget, as God will 
certainly forgive, the errors of those who seek Him igno- 
rantly, and we assist them in the common race of salva- 



THE CHTIKCH OF EKGLAKD. 



63 



tion, and guide them by the generous hand and light of 
friendship. 

From this extended view which we love to take of the 
objects and nature of Christianity, we have learned, I 
trust, one important duty, and we never deliberately 
depart from the practice of it. To withdraw our regards 
from the points on which we differ with our fellow 
Christians, and to fix them on the vast field of our agree- 
ment ; to soften away the lines of separation, not to 
exaggerate their magnitude ; to open our gates to those 
who have fallen into feebleness, not to shun their con- 
tagion; to embrace even those who seem opposed to 
us, without any hesitation of fear or jealousy, — these are 
the offices which form our pride and become our prin- 
ciples. Tear and jealousy are the attributes of error 
and weakness — to encourage them is to create the dan- 
gers whose semblance they shrink from ; they have no 
access to the eminence on which we stand, and which we 
shall continue to maintain as long as our councils are 
guided by the spirit of peace and conciliation ; dissuasive 
of those angry cavils and controversies which first con- 
vert dissent into enmity, and then inflame the rancour of 
the adversary without diminishing his power. 

We are grown wiser by the follies of our forefathers ; 
we have learned that our interests are associated with 
our duties ; we know that that free and fearless gene- 
rosity which we derive from our religion will ensure 
to us, in its unrestrained exercise, the respect and affec- 
tion of all Christians ; and we avow that this is among 
the dearest and most substantial of those merits to which, 
under the protection of Providence, we dare to look for 
our security. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ON THE HOPES OF A REFORMATION OF THE GREEK 
CHURCH. 

Before we enter into any speculation respecting the 
future condition of the Oriental Church, we must direct 
our attention for a few moments to its origin. We have 
already mentioned that the claims which it pretends to 
orthodoxy and Catholicism are principally supported by 
appeals to its great antiquity, and to a foundation resting 
on apostolic ground ; and some might be led by these 
pretensions to identify it with the primitive Church, from 
whose simplicity it is in fact so far removed. But that 
boasted antiquity possesses, in fact, no higher origin than 
the General Councils ; and thus in strictness the perfect 
Church of Greece must be contented to date its existence 
from the last of these, or from the concluding part of the 
eighth century ; since it had not attained that fulness of 
doctrine and discipline which forbade further innovation 
until that period. However, we have had occasion to 
observe that an obstinate adherence to the body of 
" orthodoxy," then completed, and a blind veneration of 
its own spurious antiquity, have preserved it from many 
of the inventions of its rival, and maintained it in a kind 
of intermediate position between the purity of the 
source and the corruption of the swollen stream. The 
same principles still subsist, and are the last which will 



CHURCHES OP GREECE A^ T D ROME. 



65 



be shaken ; and we have great reason to hope that, in 
happier circumstances of knowledge and independence, 
they will lead to the exclusion of such tenets and prac- 
tices as are not coeval with the basis and substance of 
the Church. Assuredly, at the present moment, if it 
were advisable to press any argument on the Greeks, 
touching the erroneousness of any of their tenets, the 
only argument which could be advanced with hope of 
advantage, and without danger of offence, must be drawn 
in every case from the want of antiquity, rather than of 
truth ; for it would avail little to prove that Scripture 
does not authorise any doctrine in dispute, unless it 
could be shewn also that the Councils do not inculcate it. 

In examining the hopes which we may reasonably 
entertain of some sort of religious improvement in 
Greece, and in tracing the probable nature and limits of 
such improvement, we shall do well first to review some 
of the tenets and practices already described, that we 
may learn what means of self-regeneration are contained 
in the internal economy and constitution of the Church. 
And with this object, it will be useful to persevere in the 
comparison (somewhat casually undertaken, and pursued 
I hope neither partially nor intemperately) which we 
have already drawn between the rival Churches, in some 
of their distinguishing features ; confined, however, 
to those points which bear most directly on the ques- 
tion of a practical reformation in either. 

And first, as to their professed doctrine : it appears that 
both parties alike invoke the Virgin and the Saints, and 
bow before their painted images ; and that both publicly 
disclaim any worship of the image, or even supplication 
to the Being represented, other than to a mediator. Both 
Churches admit the same number of sacraments and 
celebrate most of them nearly in the same manner ; the 
badge of transubstantiation is worn by both ; and they 
insist with the same earnestness on the principle and 
practice of auricular confession. But this seeming 
unanimity is disturbed by some differences of a nature 
truly important, as being connected with the spiritual 



66 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



influence of the Church and the operation of its doctrines 
on the habits and conduct of the vulgar. 

In the first place, the Greeks entirely disavow the 
great practical corruption of Purgatory. In rejecting 
this fable, they place their chief boast in having escaped 
the demoralising abuses which have flowed and which 
continue to flow from it. Next, they appear to have 
been at every time exempt from the worst perversions of 
Penance, as the sale of indulgences, dispensations, and 
the like — thus disdaining another powerful instrument to 
enslave and vitiate the mind of the people. Supereroga- 
tion has never been a tenet of their Church, nor in any 
age have they advanced any claims to infallibility. Again, 
the very doctrine of transubstantiation is a recent ap- 
pendage, worn rather in attestation of the triumph of 
Rome, than as the means of spiritual authority, or the 
implement of ecclesiastical ambition ; and ill indeed does 
it accord with the fading colours and antique habiliments 
of the Church, with the folds and texture which affect 
primitive simplicity. We may add, that the admission of 
this doctrine is the only important innovation which the 
Church has ever made on its original belief; and that the 
mass of the people, and even a large part of the clergy, 
profess not even now any strong or fixed opinion on a 
subject, on which, in fact, their curiosity has never been 
exercised, and which is neither endeared to them by long 
hereditary usage, nor by any ceremony of customary 
solemnity. 

It would be painful and unprofitable to particularise 
the various absurdities in forms and ceremonies which 
almost equally disfigure either Church. Indeed it is 
proper to observe, that in these respects very great di- 
versity prevails in the different branches of the same 
Church ; that the grossest practices in either are rather 
local than universal ; and that a Catholic or a Greek of 
Vienna or of Petersburg, might sincerely disclaim the 
impieties which are practised at Naples or at Jerusalem. 

The next subject then to which we shall turn is the 
form which monachism has taken in the two Churches. 



MOKACHISM. 



67 



In the one it has become inseparably connected with the 
interests and almost essential to the supremacy of the 
Pope. To that end it has been fortified and enriched and 
diversified : in the countries most purely popish it still 
continues to possess real weight and popular influence ; 
and, it is truly observed, that the diminution of the 
Pope's personal authority is very generally associated 
with the decline of the monastic order. I do not mean 
that the influence of the secular clergy is much affected 
by either of these circumstances, for that depends on 
very different matters ; only that the strictest alliance 
between the Pope and his monasteries has been always 
held necessary for the interests of both ; and that this 
alliance forms one of the . strongest features of the pure 
system of Eomanism. In the Eastern Church the same 
necessity by no means subsists, because ambition has 
never gained such systematic possession of the patri- 
archal throne as, by increasing its claims, to multiply the 
difficulties of supporting it, and to make the aid of organ- 
ised fanaticism indispensable to its defence. Prom this 
very essential difference we may safely infer that the 
reformation, if not the entire abolition, of the monastic 
order might with comparative ease be accomplished in 
Greece, because the personal interests of the head of the 
Church would not be deeply affected by such a measure. 
And we may repeat, that the restless vivacity of the na- 
tional character is so peculiarly unsuited to the genius of 
monachism, that the popular impulse will favour any 
measures hostile to that institution. 

Another great object of the Eoman Catholic system 
has been, to divide the priesthood from the people by the 
broadest lines, both with a view to secure the internal 
union of that body, by giving them separate interests, 
and also to set them apart for veneration, as a privileged 
caste and superior order. Their celibacy and the distinc- 
tion in the Eucharist were instituted chiefly for that pur- 
pose. The Greek Church is free from both these inno- 
vations, as it was never so warmly animated by the spirit 
which prescribed them ; and thus its progress to reforma- 

p 2 



68 



THE GEEEK CHURCH. 



tion will be unrestrained by some of the greatest practi- 
cal difficulties which obstruct that of its rival. 

Again, the general incoherency of its government 
forms a strong contrast with the uniform consistency of 
the Roman Catholic scheme, and presents much greater 
prospect of reform. Little opposition could be expected 
from the Patriarch, and it would be offered with little 
success. The more popular manner of his election, the 
facility of his deposition, his want of all temporal power, 
his long abandonment of any lofty spiritual claims, his 
comparative disconnection with the monastic system, his 
poverty, and the absolute feebleness proceeding from all 
these causes, would render his resistance nearly in- 
effectual. And thus the very ground whence the greatest 
difficulties spring in the reformation of the Roman 
Catholic Church, — its head and its government, — offers 
no serious obstacle to the regeneration of that of Greece. 

But be it observed, when I speak of the regeneration of 
this Church, I do not imagine the possibility of its con- 
version, or of its union with the Church of England, or 
with any other Reformed Church. I only suppose such 
an improvement in its doctrine and practice, and especi- 
ally in its practice, as will remove its grossest scandals 
and most hurtful abuses, and make it respectable, not 
only in the eyes of a Protestant, but also in the opinion 
of the most enlightened among its own members. 

In regard to its Doctrine, I consider that the sacra- 
ment of Confession, with its visible train of evil conse- 
quences, is probably its most dangerous practical 
corruption ; on account of the unnecessary influence 
which it gives to the priesthood over the conscience and 
conduct of the people. For that influence, if opposed 
to the G-overnment, may be dangerous to the State ; and 
if subservient to the Grovernment, it cannot fail to be in- 
jurious to the people. But means may perhaps be found 
indirectly to discourage or moderate the practice of con- 
fession, as long as it shall be found impossible to erase 
the mystery from the books of the Church. 

In regard to its Practice, to its rites and ceremonies, 



RITES AND CEREMONIES. 



69 



it is of course impossible to lay down any particular rules 
for reformation. In Russia, the authority of Peter was 
sufficient at once to crush the grossest superstitions and 
put a stop to the most mischievous of the delusions 
which were practised upon the lower orders. In Greece, 
a less despotic Government will, no doubt, produce the t 
same result, because it will act upon a more intelligent 
people. Greater simplicity may gradually be introduced 
into the ceremonies, the abundance of the festivals 
curtailed, and the length, number, and severity of the 
fasts diminished. Rational and moral discourses may be 
substituted for legendary declamations, and the attention 
of the vulgar diverted from the fables of their saints to 
the history of the Bible. And it is not improper to 
suggest, whether to the accomplishment of this most im- 
portant object pictural representation might not still be 
allowed to contribute, as well as oral exhortation. For 
we must never forget, in our speculations respecting 
either the progress or the improvement of Christianity 
in the East, the peculiar character of the people to be 
acted upon — a character averse from sober meditation, 
impatient of reason, prone to enthusiasm, slow to the 
abstraction of deliberate piety, zealous for outward show 
and representation and acts and objects of sensed 

And this consideration, while it points out to us one 
secondary method of introducing improvement into the 
religious system of the East, shows us also the extent of 
. reform by which our present expectations should be satis- 
fied. It is not possible at once to impress a volatile and 
passionate people with the spiritual and reflective nature 
of religion; to reduce them to earnest and motionless 
prayer and penitence ; to persuade them that, in the 

* Many, perhaps most, of their ceremonies are, in fact, representations. 
The asterisk placed over the sacramental bread represents the star of the 
Magi. ' In Passion Week the whole process of the Crucifixion is almost 
theatrically represented, at least at Jerusalem. The function of the Holy 
Fire represents that which burnt the sacrifice of Elijah — and such is the 
spirit of their whole religion. Thus their violent narrations of the mira- 
cles or sufferings of a saint are addressed indirectly to the senses, and 
their very Repentance (/-teratoid) is nothing more than an outward act. 



70 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



offices of worship, there is little merit in gesticulation and 
attitude and bodily prostration, wherein nature, no less 
than habit, has encouraged them to place the very sub- 
stance of religion. It is not possible at once to unteach 
the superstitious lessons of many centuries, nor will it 
be easy at any time to compose the violent dispositions 
of the East to the tranquillity of Protestant devotion. 
In the mean time, it is undoubtedly true that, as any peo- 
ple shall recede farther from barbarism, the character of 
its worship will be less influenced by sensible objects; and 
thus a great improvement will assuredly attend the pro- 
gress of civilisation among Orientals, though it be not 
probable that they will soon arrive at our simplicity. 
Nor indeed is it necessary for the honour of religion, or 
the unanimity of Christians, that they should do so ; for, 
in the general scheme of Providence, every reasonable 
variety in form and ceremony is permitted to the wor- 
shippers of Christ and is consistent with the single un- 
varying spirit which animates and unites his universal 
Church. 

The above very concise remarks on the prospects of a 
moral and religious reformation in Greece have proceeded, 
of course, on the supposition of an effective civil Grovern- 
ment, without which I can see no hope of any permanent 
improvement. The necessary changes in the ecclesiastical 
system must emanate from that source. We have already 
observed, that the body of the Oriental Church is too 
weak and too widely distracted and too humbly dependent 
to possess any means of self-reformation; but, in the 
newly-constituted state, a Synod of the most eminent 
prelates, convoked by the Chief of the Government, would 
be the legal instrument of introducing such alterations 
as should seem desirable both to themselves and to him. 
The spiritual head of the Greek Church has, in every 
country and at every period, acknowledged the pre- 
eminence of the temporal authority ; and thus the rule, 
which prevailed under the Christian not less than under 
the Turkish princes of Constantinople, under the arch- 
dukes as well as under the emperors of Russia, prevails 



AUTHORITY OF THE CIYIL GOVERNMENT. 71 

also in the kingdom of Greece. The constitution and 
histoiy of the Church equally prove, that the right to 
originate a reform in it is possessed by the civil Govern- 
ment; and where the right is, there certainly is the 
duty. 

Such are the speculations which have occurred to me, 
and which I deliver not inconsiderately, respecting a 
country whose literature has led me to her acquaintance, 
and whose acquaintance has endeared her to my memory 
— in such manner, that she is become not only an object 
of pleasing recollection, but also of deep solicitude and 
reasonable expectation. And though the blessings which 
we anticipate can scarcely be brought to pass in our days, 
it is at least some satisfaction to have expressed our hopes 
and proffered our counsel, and even thus to dedicate to 
the loveliest land on earth the labours which have been 
directed to her service. 



end or PART I. 



PART II. 



THE 

HISTORY OE THE GREEK CHURCH 

DURING THE 

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



THE HISTORY, 

ETC., ETC. 



The tranquil and unvarying condition of the Greek 
Church, from the date of the Seventh General Council 
until the beginning of the seventeenth century, justifies 
the complaint of Mosheim, that its history furnishes few 
materials for philosophical investigation : for it happens 
in ecclesiastical as in other records, that the most at- 
tractive, perhaps the most instructive periods, are those 
of turbulence and innovation. During an interval of 
above eight hundred years, the constitution of this Church 
underwent little alteration, either in doctrine or disci- 
pline. Its wealth, indeed, and courtly influence suffered 
successive diminutions from various political causes, until 
the final wound was inflicted on both by the Turkish con- 
quest. But this violent revolution, while it little affected 
either the form or principles of the Eastern faith, probably 
tended rather to increase than lessen the authority of the 
priesthood over the lower orders. This result may have 
proceeded from three causes. First, it entered into the 
earliest policy of the conquerors to make use of the 
Grreek hierarchy as the instrument of enforcing the 
obedience of the people, and of riveting the chain less 
rudely and more securely ; and it was natural that the 
ministers of religion, being thus made the medium of 
temporal authority, would be invested by the partial 
vulgar with some portion of that power which it was 
their office only to transmit. In the next place, in the 
common degradation of both priests and people, the most 
pressing calamities were inflicted upon the latter, so that, 
in the relative situation of the two parties, the change 



76 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



was in favour of the clergy. And lastly, deprived of a 
native and even a Christian king, bleeding under the 
tyranny of a stranger, and repelled and revolted by 
habitual insult and outrage, to whom could that afflicted 
people turn for aid or consolation on earth, except to 
those who held the keys and stood before the portals of 
heaven ? Thus it is not surprising that they clung to 
their priesthood with the affection which belongs to the 
desolate, and paid that reverence to them which the 
terrors of the temporal Government forbade them to 
direct to itself. Hence spread the custom of submitting 
their private disputes to the arbitration of the ministers 
of their religion, in preference to the capricious partiality 
of Turkish justice — an ancient custom indeed, but one 
which, by becoming more general, tended to widen the 
space, which separated the people from their conquerors, 
and to draw them closer round the Church. 

The external history of the Greek Church during the 
long interval above mentioned, is distinguished by its 
disputes with that of Rome, and by the firmness or 
violence with which it resisted every overture of union — 
a term which, through the peculiar nature of popery, is 
synonymous with submission. The want of moderation 
displayed in these disputes was common to both parties ; 
the misfortunes and the reproach arising from them 
afflicted the whole body of Christianity; but on calm 
retrospection we find it more easy to pardon the intem- 
perance which rejected an unfounded claim, than the 
arrogance which urged it ; and in the final success and 
independence of the Church of Greece, we may be per- 
mitted to express such joy as arises from the nearer hope 
that we see of its eventual reformation. 

To attain its favourite object, the Roman Church has 
endeavoured, from time to time, to profit by the political 
fear and weakness of the Greeks. In the beginning of 
the fifteenth century, when the existence of the empire 
was immediately threatened by the Turkish arms, it was 
hoped that the Orientals would be found willing to aban- 
don their religious scruples at the approach of a great 



COUNCIL OP FLORENCE. 



77 



national calamity, and to sacrifice some parts of their 
faith, in the hope of preserving the remainder. Accord- 
ingly, they were led to expect that submission to the 
Papal See would be made the means of interesting the 
nations of the West in their preservation ; as the Pope 
would not fail to exert for them, when papists, that in- 
fluence to which, as mere Christians, they had little 
claims on him. In these circumstances and with these 
sentiments, the deputies of the two Churches assembled 
at the Council of Florence in 1439 ; and after some days 
of disputation it was agreed — that contradictory phrases 
had, in fact, the same meaning, and that opposite doc- 
trines admitted of easy reconciliation : # a seeming har- 
mony was thus introduced, and the Greeks returned to 
communicate the success of their negociation to their 
countrymen. They were received with indignation as 
traitors to the orthodox faith, and they awaked with as- 
tonishment and shame from the fascination which had 
been thrown over them. A few years afterwards Constan- 
tinople was taken by the Turks ; and taken it would still 
have been if the Church of Greece had confirmed every 
act of the Council of Florence ; and Greece possessed at 
least one consolation in her misery, that in the ruin of 
her political fortunes she had at least preserved the in- 
dependence of her faith. 

The Mahometan conquest presented no discourage- 
ment to Papal ambition, but rather inspired it with new 
hopes and more audacious energy. We need not notice 
the celebrated letter of Pius II. to Mahomet II., that 

* For example : " We also declare that what some of the Holy- 
Fathers have said, viz., that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father 
through the Son, should be taken in such manner as to signify that [the 
Son as well as the Father, and conjointly with Him, is the principle of 
the Holy Ghost ; and since whatsoever the Father hath, that He com- 
municates to His Son, except the paternity which distinguishes Him 
from the Son and the Holy Spirit, so is it from the Father that the Son 
has received, from all eternity, that productive virtue through which] the 
Hol y Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father." That is 
to say, through the import of the words included between the brackets, 
the two doctrines, after so long dividing the Churches, become one. 



78 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



most memorable monument of arrogance and folly, except 
to prove how very steadily the attention of Rome was 
fixed upon the East, in any circumstance of change ; but 
of the continuance of her secret exertions at Constantino- 
ple, and even of their partial success, we have evidence 
sufficient in the fact, that, between the years 1453 and 
1599, no less than thirteen of the Patriarchs who sat on 
that throne professed the Roman Catholic faith. It is 
possible that some of these Patriarchs, in adopting the 
tenets, may also have individually acknowledged the au- 
thority of the Church of Rome, But as their succession 
was interrupted by others, about equal in number 
and no doubt in sincerity, who continued faithful to the 
ancient doctrines, the Latins cannot boast of more than 
an occasional and disputed supremacy; and when we 
reflect on the violent jealousies which were kept, by such 
disputes, in continual operation, and on the cruel animo- 
sities thus excited, which might otherwise not have been, 
we cannot congratulate them on having advanced either 
the happiness or the virtue of the Greeks by their inter- 
ference. But we must admit that more was extorted 
from the helplessness of that people and the venality of 
their Government, than could ever have been obtained 
from their reason or their passions ; and it is not impro- 
bable, that the tenets occasionally proceeding through so 
many years from the patriarchal throne, and leading to 
the possession of it, obtained some prevalence among 
an ambitious priesthood and obedient subjects. 

During the latter part of this period, the Reformation 
had made great progress in the "West ; and, in the natural 
hope of sympathy from the ancient rival of Rome, its 
leaders made overtures of coalition to the Church of 
Greece. Jeremiah, # the Patriarch of Constantinople, 
listened to them with respect ; and, in pointing out the 

* Some previous steps had been taken by Melanchthon, who sent to 
Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, a Greek copy of the Confession of 
Augsburg. This document was accompanied by a very temperate letter 
of explanation, to which, however, the Patriarch vouchsafed no answer. 
The divines of Tubingen renewed the overtures to his successor Jere- 
miah. — Mosh., Cent. 16, sect. 3, part 1. 



PEOTESTANTS AJsB EOMAK CATHOLICS. 



79 



differences which prevented their union, he appears to 
have expressed himself with such temperance, that, while 
the Romans extol his pious orthodoxy, the Protestants 
also have found matter in his answers to persuade them, 
that his opinions, in some important respects, coincided 
with their own. # Aud thus, though the attempt at coa- 
lition was not successful, yet the emancipation of so 
large a portion of Europe from popish principles may 
have restrained their progress in the East, by convincing 
their opponents that they might be resisted with impu- 
nity, and thus breaking the charm of opinion by which 
they had been upheld and consecrated. 

But the zeal and activity of the Roman Church seemed 
to increase with the diniculties which obstructed them. 
The spiritual possession of the East had long been a fa- 
vourite object of her ambition, even in the days of her 
glory, and some advances towards it she had assuredly 
made since the Turkish conquest. But the field was now 
no longer undisputed. The banners of the Reformation 
were unfolded on the banks of the Bosphorus and the 
city of the infidel was gratified with a spectacle of Christ- 
ian dissension ; from the city this spread over a large 
part of the empire and disturbed the greater portion of 
the seventeenth century. In this contest, we confess with 
sorrow, that the arts, the weapons, the discipline of Rome 
were, in some degree, triumphant ; for, though she sus- 
tained the final failure of her grand object, the subjugation 
of the Greek Church, she succeeded in obtaining from it 
some public confessions of faith, containing doctrines 
not widely differing from her own. And though we 
may doubt whether these confessions fairly represented 
the faith of the majority, we must still admit their effect 
in disseminating the opinions they contain : and thus has 
Rome, even in her retreat from this disputed country, 

* " Les traitez dogmatiques du Patriarche Jeremie ont ete imprimes 
en Grec et en Latin a Wirtemberg, Tan 1584 ; c'est pourquoi le lecteur 
est prie de voir cet ouvrage, et il y trouvera justement le contraire de ce 
que les Docteurs de Sorbonne et de Port-Royal ont fait entendre aux 
Grecs." — Aymon, p. 276. 



80 



THE GrEEEK CHTIKCH. 



left behind her the deep traces of her invasion. Her 
gloomy warriors are indeed withdrawn ; her Jesuits and 
her Sorbonists are no longer to be fomid wrangling with 
the priests or corrupting the Government ; but some of 
their opinions still remain engraved on the public tablets 
of the Church and on the conscience of its members. 

Some readers may wish to be made briefly acquainted 
with the details of this contest, which is indeed of much 
importance in ecclesiastical history ; and as I know not 
to what single author to refer them, I may be permitted 
to lay before them such a concise account as I have been 
able to extricate from the confusion of controversy. 

In the long succession of Patriarchs who have occupied, 
since the schism withEome, the throne of Constantinople, 
it would be difficult to find one who has merited any dis- 
tinction, either for talents, or liberal acquirements and 
character, except Cyril Lucar (Kvp&Xog Aovxapu;) . He was 
a native of Candia, born a Venetian subject, and received 
his education at Padua. But seemingly unsatisfied with 
the partial knowledge there opened to him, and animated, 
perhaps, by an early antipathy to the Roman Church, 
he proceeded to make a personal inquiry into the learning 
and the " heresies " of the West. He passed some time 
in both Germany and England, and returned to his native 
land the confirmed and enlightened adversary of popery. 
His merits speedily recommended him to the attention 
of Meletius, Patriarch of Alexandria, who sent him, in 
the year 1600, on a special message to Sigismond, King 
of Poland ; in which country it was feared that the doc- 
trines of Home were gaining ground upon the " Catholic 
Oriental orthodoxy." A few years afterwards, on the 
death of Meletius, Cyril succeeded to that patriarchate, 
and held it for some time. During this period he cor- 
responded with certain eminent Protestants, especially 
those of Holland. His long epistle, " De Statu Gra&ca- 
rum Ecclesiarum," addressed to John Wytenbogaert, 
Minister of the Grospel at the Hague, contains a clear 
account of the condition of the Eastern Church, and a 
very temperate and rational exposition of its doctrines ; 



CTEIL LTJCAE. 



81 



a few complaints respecting the aggressions and intoler- 
ance of popery are expressed with great moderation ; and 
the sentiments of religions charity which we find, bear 
every evidence of sincerity. "We must notice one other 
letter, addressed by him, in the year 1616, to George 
Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. It appears that 
James the First had offered a theological education in 
England to any Greeks properly recommended for that 
purpose, and Cyril now accepted this offer in behalf of 
one Metrophanes, who afterwards became Patriarch of 
Alexandria. He begins his letter by lamenting the con- 
troversial advantages conferred by a scholastic education 
on the Latins and Latinized Greeks, and the difficulty 
of finding those among his illiterate churchmen who could 
contend with their sophistry. Eoth these epistles are 
written in Latin, not without elegance. 

It was probably within two or three years from the 
date of this letter, that Cyril was advanced to the throne 
of Constantinople. He was not destined to enjoy this 
honour undisturbed, for, being now placed in the very 
centre of Jesuitical intrigue, he was also the detested ob- 
ject of its activity. He was speedily deposed and ban- 
ished to Rhodes, and speedily restored to his dignity. 
The former object is said to have been accomplished by 
Romish influence ; the latter by the interference of the 
English ambassador. So much, at least, is certain — that 
the Turkish Government failed not to turn these dissen- 
sions to its own advantage, and dealt out its justice or 
its mercy in exact proportion to the inducement imme- 
diately proposed for either. 

In the years 1623 and 1624 fresh efforts were made by 
the adversaries of the Patriarch; and the court of Rome 
engaged in the dispute so far as to send an emissary to 
Constantinople to effect his ruin. This person was charged 
with political accusations against Cyril, in order to 
destroy his credit with the Porte : the prelate was ac- 
cused of an understanding with those enemies of the 
Turks who were of his own communion, and of fomenting 
the rebellion of the Cossacks. The failure of this attempt 

Cr 



82 



THE GREEK CHTTKCH. 



was followed by another far more extravagant, and highly 
characteristic of the arrogance whence it proceeded. The 
Pope nominated a Patriarch of his own, and sent him 
with a suite of bishops to the Greek metropolis. This 
insnlt, however, which was intended only for a Christian 
rival, was felt in the recesses of the Seraglio. "Without 
loss of time or ceremony, the episcopal train was con- 
ducted to Turkish prisons, and the Eoman Patriarch es- 
caped the same or a worse fate only by precipitate night. 
But what reverses ever repressed the industry of Borne, 
fertile in manifold expedients, and ever present to avail 
herself of every fortuitous advantage ? 

Anxious to improve the education of his countrymen, 
Cyril, in co-operation with the English ambassador, coun- 
tenanced a printing-press, introduced into the capital 
from Holland. The Erench monks, who had already es- 
tablished a school there for their own purposes, to which 
they would willingly have confined all instruction, and 
who were not desirous that the Greeks should become 
more learned than they chose to make them, presented 
themselves at the Porte, and revealed the plot which was 
preparing alike against the Pope and the Prophet : for 
they carried with them a book which had been written 
by Cyril during his residence in England, in which he 
proved the divinity of Christ against the Jews and the 
Mahometans : and such, they added, are the books which 
are intended to proceed from the press of Cyril — such 
his treacherous designs to corrupt the loyalty of the 
Greeks ! # The Turks, without further inquiry, sent down 
one hundred and fifty Janissaries, who scattered the frag- 
ments of the press, and scarcely restrained their indig- 
nation against its patrons. The triumph of the Latins 
was complete — they had crushed the first bud which 
had broken out from the seared trunk of learning — 
the earliest hope of the revival in Greece of knowledge 
and reason and virtue, they had blasted — their exultation 
was unbounded and unalloyed. 

Cyril appears, however, to have maintained his autho- 
* Aymon, Diss. Prelim., pp. 10 and 217, and seq. 



cykil's confession oe faith. 83 

rity (for his second deposition is disputed) with little or 
no interruption until his death, in the year 1638. Re- 
specting the circumstances of his death there is also some 
uncertainty; and all that we can deliver with confidence 
is, that he was strangled in his palace by order of the 
Government. Protestant polemics have asserted, that the 
Jesuits took advantage of the absence of the Sultan and 
the Vizier on a military expedition, to prevail on an infe- 
rior officer, the Bairam Pasha, to execute the common 
enemy of Turks and Latins. Of the truth of this charge, 
whether probable or not, I can find no sufficient evi- 
dence; and as similar accusations have been violently ad- 
vanced and repelled on both sides, the clemency of history 
may acquit the combatants of the heavier crime. And in- 
deed, when all circumstances are considered, the wonder 
rather is that so good a man, surrounded by so many un- 
scrupulous foes, should have been allowed to live so long. 

That act of Cyril, which has obtained for him more 
honour and more obloquy than any other, is his celebrated 
"Confession of Paith." This important document is 
dated from Constantinople, January, 1621; it was first 
printed in Holland, in 1629, nine years before the 
death of the Patriarch ; and as we have no evidence 
that it was ever disclaimed by him, we may discredit the 
assertions of those who held it supposititious : for they 
rest on no good authority, and are contradicted by the 
very anathemas which were hurled against him as its au- 
thor by the Latinists themselves, at the Council of 
Constantinople. Indeed the genuineness of this pro- 
duction is beyond any reasonable suspicion ; but in ex- 
amining its nature, there arise strong doubts whether we 
should consider it an exposition so much as a reformation 
of the Greek faith; whether it faithfully expresses the 
opinions of the body of the Church as they then actually 
existed, or whether some of the tenets were not in fact 
peculiar to Cyril himself, who took that method to ren- 
der them acceptable to his fellow-countrymen. The 
Roman Catholics maintain the latter opinion, and I am 
disposed entirely to agree with them. But we shall best 

a 2 



84 



THE GBEEK CHUBCH. 



arrive at truth by shortly investigating some of the dis- 
puted articles of the "Confession." 

It consists of eighteen chapters, or articles, and four 
answers (jxiroxgicrsis). Of these chapters, the first and 
seventh deliver the Greek doctrines of the Trinity, the 
Procession of the Holy Ghost, and the Incarnation ; the 
fourth derives all evil from the daemon, or from man ; 
and the sixth refers original sin to the fall of Adam ; the 
ninth and thirteenth relate to saving faith as including 
good works ; the sixteenth enforces the necessity of bap- 
tism for salvation ; and the fourteenth treats of the 
co-operation of free-will with the Holy Spirit, by which 
it is excited to action in the regenerate. In the above 
eight articles, I can discover nothing inconsistent with 
the professed opinions of the Greek Church. 

Of the remaining ten, there are two of a tendency de- 
cidedly Calvinistic ; — the third is one of them : — " We 
believe that the perfectly good God, before the founda- 
tion of the world, predestined to glory whom He had 
elected, in no respect regarding their works, nor having 
any cause impelling Him to this election, other than his 
good will — Divine mercy. In like manner, before time 
was, that He rejected whom He has rejected : the cause 
of this rejection, if we look to the uncontrolled mastery 
and dominion of God, we shall doubtless discover to be 
the Divine will ; if we turn to the laws and rules of order 
which Providence uses in the Government of the world, 
we shall perceive it to be his justice ; for God is mer- 
ciful, and just also." The eleventh article speaks also of 
those elected to eternal life. Now the charge most 
violently urged against Cyril was that of Calvinism, and 
every effort was made by his enemies to render that term 
odious throughout the East. The article I have quoted 
does, indeed, partly justify this charge in the proper 
sense of the word ; but the Latinists of the East adopted 
the term in a much broader acceptation, to include all 
the heresies of the Reformation. Thus in the acts of 
Constantinople and Tassi, Protestants of all opinions are 
designated by no other name than Calvinist ; and it was 



cxeil's coistessiok or FAITH. 



85 



not until the year 1672 that the Greeks appear to have 
noticed any distinction between the followers of Luther 
and Calvin ; and they then described it as being unim- 
portant.* "We shall not be surprised at the prevalence 
and continuance of this error, when we recollect that 
they derived most of their theological instruction from 
French emissaries. 

The eight remaining articles appear to be levelled more 
or less directly against the principles of the Church of 
Home. The second, tenth, and twelfth, respectively 
assert, that the authority of Scripture is superior to that 
of the Church ; that Christ is the only "head " of the 
Church, and that the chiefs of particular Churches have 
no claim to that title ; and that the Church is fallible, 
except as far as it is under the guidance of the Holy 
Spirit. The fifth article most properly inculcates hu- 
mility in all our super-human speculations. The eighth 
is this — "We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, sitting 
on the right hand of the Father, is there our mediator, 
and intercedes for us, alone acting the part of a true and 
legitimate chief priest and mediator ; wherefore alone He 
takes charge of those belonging to Him, and presides over 
the Church, which is enriched by a variety of blessings 
and ornament s." So daring an attack upon the office 
and authority of the saints would scarcely be more popu- 
lar with the Greek than with the Latin people, whether 
it might accord or not with the genuine doctrine of the 
Church. 

The three other articles refer respectively to the 
number of the Sacraments, the nature of the Eucharist, 
and the intermediate state of the dead. In distinctly 
bruiting the holy mysteries to two — Baptism and the 
Eucharist (art. 15), Cyril deviated from the faith of 
his ancestors, and meditated a reasonable innovation 
in the doctrine of his Church. In the chapter (17) 
respecting the Eucharist, while he asserts the spiritual 
presence of Christ, he at once denies any miraculous 

* 'A5eA.0a Se ttcos <ppope7 hovQiipos KaXovlva), el kcu eu tlcti Siacpepeiv 
BoKovai. — Acts of Council of Jerusalem, ■ Aymou, p. 276. 



86 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



transformation of the element, " sneli as Transubstan- 
tiation, idly invented, teacheth." # On this point, too, 
we cannot doubt that he would find many opponents 
in his own Church ; for, though its most ancient creeds 
enjoin nothing positive on this tenet, it had been so suc- 
cessfully inculcated by the Bomish emissaries for nearly 
two hundred years, that it had acquired many advocates 
among the people; even among that vast majority which 
disclaimed the authority of the Pope and some other in- 
novations of his Church. The last article places the 
departed in a condition of immediate happiness or con- 
demnation, according to their merits, and discredits the 
"story of purgatory" (joy vsp] KaSc&pTwplov ^So?) — a story 
which at no time obtained any honour in Greece. 

Of the four "answers," three respect the reading 
and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and the 
fourth relates to the worship of images. The worship 
is forbidden, but the use permitted, yet obviously with 
reluctance, and with a full consciousness of the evils 
thence proceeding, and of the inability of the Church to 
arrest them.f 

From this brief examination we perceive that the Con- 
fession of Cyril, among many doctrines universally ad- 
mitted by his Church, promulgated others which either 
had not before been acknowledged, or were a subject of 
dispute and division, or were actually in opposition to 
received opinions,— for such I suppose to have been the 
exclusion of saints and martyrs from the mediatorial 
office, the limitation of the number of the sacraments to 
two, and the denial of Transubstantiation. In these 
respects, then, we may consider the Confession not as a 
mere exposition of faith, but in the broader view of an 
attempt to reform the abuses of the Church; and thus, 
while we admire the courage and wisdom of its author, 
we shall feel no surprise at the opposition which he en- 

* Ylapovtrlav , %v f) irians rj fxlv irapiarTjCL Kai irpoffQepei, oi>x ?; £(pzv- 
p€0eT<ra shii diSdo-Kei METOY2l'r22I3. 

+ Kai (TTrjaai r)\v <popav Kpeiaaov ij KaB* ^uas etvai QfioXoyov/jLcv* 



SYNODS OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND TASSI. 87 



countered while living, or the virulence which poisoned 
his memory. 

Cyril Lucar was succeeded by his adversary, Cyril of 
Beroea, a violent partisan of Popery — a fact which affords 
some pretence for the Protestant account of his death. 
And it is certain that his ashes were scarcely cold, when 
a Synod was assembled- in the capital itself, to anathe- 
matise his person and his opinions, and every man who 
held them orthodox. 

The public Declaration (JvQqs) of this Council, how- 
ever, is confined to five or six points of attack, and 
some even of these are founded on an unfair represen- 
tation of the doctrines of the Confession ; those which 
are inculcated in their place are strictly Romish. This 
edict was signed by about fifty ecclesiastics, several of 
whom held offices in the Patriarchal Church at Constan- 
tinople. 

Cyril of Bercea did not long enjoy his triumph; he 
perished, like his predecessor, by a violent death; and, 
indeed, during this period of furious dissension, so rapid 
was the succession by death or deposition that between 
1620 and 1671 we find the patriarchal throne to have 
been vacant nineteen times. 

Very soon afterwards, it was thought necessary to make 
a second assault on the "heresy" of Cyril, and in the 
year 1642 a Council was summoned for that purpose at 
Yassi, in Moldavia, by the Patriarch Parthenius. Its 
labours give evidence of more deliberate hostility. The 
articles of the Confession are separately examined, and 
every one of them (excepting the seventh only) is found 
to be tainted with " the Calvinistic heresy." Doubtless, 
in the estimation of the Latinised Greeks, this alone 
would have been sufficient for their condemnation, even 
if they had in no respect deviated from the faith of " the 
Apostolic Church ;" for they had been inspired by their 
papist instructors with such terror of the name of Calvin, 
that any creed might seem preferable to agreement with 
him. But the reasonableness of Cyril's doctrine is dis- 
puted, as well as its orthodoxy ; and when we compare 



88 



THE GEEEK CHITKCH. 



the observations on the Confession with the articles to 
which they are respectively directed, we find them so 
full of strange misapprehensions, that we might be led 
to believe them levelled against some other creed, or 
some very different copy of the same creed, unless we 
had learnt from centuries of lamentable experience, that 
there is no gulf of intellectual perversity too deep for 
those whom religious dissension has blinded. 

But the Synod of Tassi could scarcely have claimed 
any place in history, had it not been distinguished by 
the presence of some Russian prelates, who took an 
active part in its deliberations. The Russian Church 
possessed as yet no public standard of orthodoxy ; and 
while it professed to follow in doctrine the unsettled 
faith of Greece, it surpassed its feeble guide both in the 
laxity of its discipline and in the ignorance of its minis- 
ters and its members. Peter Mogilas, " archbishop of 
Kioff and all Russia," willing, if possible, to remove this 
reproach, as well as to extirpate some weeds of heresy 
which were beginning to sprout up in his neglected vine- 
yard, readily united in reprobation of Cyril's Calvinism ; 
and it seems probable that, on his return to Russia, he 
immediately published the " Exposition of the Russian 
Doctrine and Faith." # This exposition, after undergoing 
some amendments and additions at the hands of the 
Patriarchs, swelled into the nobler title of " Orthodox 
Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Paith of the 
Eastern Church." It is needless to remark, that the 
great majority of a semi-barbarous people are generally 
undisturbed by the establishment or fluctuation of ob- 
scure doctrines, or perhaps entirely ignorant of their 
existence, unless they are embodied and represented to 
them in some sacrament or ceremony. But by the few 
who possessed any learning, and these were to be found 
only in the higher orders of the priesthood, the above 
Confession was submissively received ; and, we may add, 

* See Consett, on the Russian Church.— Pre/. The u Orthodox 
Confession" followed in 1648. 



SXNOD OP JERUSALEM. 



89 



that the doctrine of transubstantiation is most clearly 
inculcated by it. # 

In the meantime, the disputes between Claude and 
the Sorbonists in France had disturbed the monastic 
repose of the East, and the emissaries of both parties 
seem to have penetrated the very recesses of Greece in 
pursuit of advocates, or at least of signatures. Neither 
party had any reason to complain of coldness, for doubt- 
less neither failed to make use of that argument which 
is most intelligible to the poor and the ignorant. But 
the more (hsciplined experience and tactics of the Latins 
prevailed, and when M. de jS"ointel, the French ambas- 
sador, condescended to engage in a personal canvass, his 
efforts proved irresistible. Twenty " Confessions de Foi 
des Grecs," attested by above five hundred ecclesiastics, 
enriched the archives of the Port Royalists, and were 
published in their famous work, "La Perpetuite de la 
Foi de l'Eglise Catholique touchant PEucharistie." This 
success afforded them a temporary triumph over adver- 
saries who had not scorned to seek the same victory by 
the same means ; but the historian derives from it little 
assurance of the doctrines, but much of the ignorance, 
indifference, or venality of the clergy of Greece. 

M. de JNointel followed up his advantage with un- 
wearied diligence ; and we cannot doubt that it was his 
influence which prevailed upon Dositheus, Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, to summon a third Synod, for the purpose of 
finally extinguishing the opinions of Cyril. This Synod 
assembled at J erusalem, or, more correctly, at Bethlehem, 
in the year 1672 ; and its proceedings, which are more 
voluminous than those of the two former Councils, may 
be divided into a general attack upon all Protestants ; a 
particular reprobation of the " Confession," with an idle 
attempt to shew that it was not the work of Cyril ; and an 
exposition of the orthodox faith, composed by Dositheus. 

* It is admitted in the Confession that the Elements, after the sub- 
stance is changed, retain their former appearance ; a concession to the 
sense of sight which appears to have surprised M. Aymon into an opinion 
that it was a modification of the doctrine. 



90 



THE GrEEEK CHTJECH. 



On the first of these subjects it is needless to make any 
comment, and the second is chiefly curious, in as far as 
it proves the high respect which continued to prevail 
throughout the Church for the name of Cyril. The 
assembled prelates were desirous to deprive the Con- 
fession of the authority which it possessed as his work ; 
they were anxious to detach the opinions from the high 
character of him who professed them : the heresy they 
might despise or abhor, but they both feared and re- 
spected the heretic. And thus were they not ashamed 
to endeavour, on the slightest evidence, to overthrow 
what fact and probability had alike contributed to esta- 
blish, and what the public declarations of two Synods 
had avowed without reserve or suspicion. 

After reading much reprobation of the Confession, and 
many foolish attempts to exculpate Cyril from the crime 
of having composed it, we proceed with great curiosity to 
the third point, that we may learn the doctrines really 
constituting that orthodoxy which had been so rudely 
violated. The Creed of Dositheus is also divided into 
sixteen "Decrees," following the order of the chapters 
of Cyril, and in many places even tracing the paragraphs, 
and adopting the very words of the latter, so that we 
cannot doubt that our copy of the Confession (published 
at the Hague) is the same with that which caused so 
much scandal to the Synod of Jerusalem. And now 
shall I hesitate to confess that, after an attentive com- 
parison of the two creeds, I am unable to discover more 
than three material points of difference between them ? 
Others may lurk there which have escaped me, for my 
eye is slow to distinguish the evanescent shades and to 
trace the minute lines of religious controversy ; but no 
difference more than verbal can I there discern save as 
to the number of the sacraments, the real presence, and 
the state of the dead. 

The third article of Cyril has subjected him to the 
charge of Calvinism — let us see the third article of Do- 
sitheus : — " "We believe that the perfectly good Grod has 
from eternity predestined to glory those whom He hath 



SYISTOD OF JEETJSALEM. 



91 



elected, and delivered to punishment those whom He 
hath rejected ; not, however, that He hath thus willed, 
either to justify those or condemn these without a cause." 
The cause of which Dositheus has been contented to 
assert the existence, Cyril has endeavoured to assign, 
and the praise of superior prudence is certainly due to 
the former ; but his words express no dissent from the 
cause assigned, nor would Cyril himself have hesitated 
for a moment to subscribe to them. The eighth article 
of Cyril seems to reject the mediation of the Saints. 
The following are the words of Dositheus : — " We be- 
lieve that our Lord Jesus Christ is the sole mediator, 
and that, having given Himself as a ransom for all, He 
made a reconciliation by his own blood between Grod and 
man, and that He is the watchful (careful) Comforter of 
those belonging to Him, and a propitiation for our sins." 
Prom this decree it is quite clear, that, whatever may be 
the opinions or the practice of some individual members, 
the Greek Church did not then officially acknowledge the 
mediatory power of the Saints. In the three articles 
(2, 10, and 12) which regard the wisdom and autho- 
rity of the Church, the principles of the two opponents 
are the same ; their verbal difference only arises from 
the greater caution of Dositheus, who leaves to inference 
the consequence which Cyril had asserted. 

But when he arrives at the three points of real differ- 
ence, the Patriarch of Jerusalem expresses himself with 
perfect precision; and when he inculcates the divine 
origin of the seven mysteries, the actual change of the 
elements in the Eucharist, and the final sentence of the 
dead at the day of judgment, we believe him to deliver 
the opinions of the greater part of his communion, as 
they were growing into prevalence at that time, and as 
they are now established. # 

¥e may consider the Synod of Jerusalem as having 

* We should recollect, however, that the Councils of Jerusalem, of 
Constantinople, and of Yassi were, after all, only local Synods, not 
General Councils, and therefore that their decrees are not binding on the 
" Catholic" church. 



92 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



restored its ancient repose to the Church of Greece — at 
least, the struggles which had so long divided it were 
not openly renewed. But the animosities thus occa- 
sioned, were they so soon forgotten ? The passions agi- 
tated by religious contention, were they so easily com- 
posed and reconciled ? But it has ever been the fate 
and misery of Greece to throw open her consecrated 
vales and islands, as it were, for a sanctuary and ever- 
lasting temple to discord. In her hours of glory she 
was deeply stained with her own best and noblest blood ; 
in her days of philosophy, she was distracted by clamorous 
controversy ; in her years and centuries of slavery and 
helplessness, she has been made a bleeding field of action 
for the crimes of powerful robbers, the object of their 
fierce ambition, the partner in their misfortunes and dis- 
grace, the victims of their cruelty and perfidy. And, as 
if it were not enough that her political existence should 
be extinguished by Mahometan conquest, the purity of 
her own faith was disputed at the very moment when 
she stood most in need of it. The cowled emissaries of 
Rome thronged round to behold her struggles ; they 
derided the accents of her prayers ; they darkened her 
prospect of salvation ; they insulted her feebleness by 
demanding her spiritual allegiance to a foreign master ; 
and, doubtless, they would have subjected her to inquisi- 
torial tortures, if the Government, which had inflicted 
upon her every other evil, had not preserved her from that. 

Presently, the Protestant arrived to rescue her from 
the shoals to which the other would have conducted her, 
and to guide her into the harbour of peace. The two 
adversaries contended, the one for her possession, the 
other for her friendship ; and the clamours of the con- 
flict appear to have awakened in her that sort of irritable 
animation, which decided her to reject what seemed most 
pressing in the solicitations of both : for while she dis- 
claimed for ever the authority of the Pope, she repelled 
the communion of the heretic. The contending parties 
at length retired ; and we must confess, that the impres- 
sion produced by their interference, and communicated 



OBJECTS OP CHURCH OF ROME. 



93 



to the feelings of the people, has been far from favour- 
able to either. 

Such, in a few words, was the nature of the movements 
excited in the East by the Reformation. The Church of 
Greece, though divided by serious differences from her 
rival of Borne, rested for the most part on the same 
foundations ; in veneration of antiquity and horror of 
innovation and heresy she even surpassed her ; and, 
therefore, though she might rejoice in her humiliation, 
she could have no sympathy with those who had occa- 
sioned it. It is in religious, as in political despotisms ; 
the spirit of reason and independence is viewed with sus- 
picion, even when it disturbs the peace of a rival. The 
Eastern Church, sovereign unrestrained over the con- 
science of her own subjects, was interested to maintain 
the legitimacy of the same description of sovereignty to 
Kome ; and, therefore, she condemned the revolt of the 
reformers on principles common to both Churches, and 
regarded with distrust their spiritual independence. 

For this general as well as many particular reasons, 
we need not be surprised that the opinions of the Pro- 
testants have made no progress in the East. And if we 
should wish to ascertain the precise limits of the success 
of Rome in the same field, where she was encamped for 
so many centuries, we should find that her exertions 
were directed at various periods (sometimes even at the 
same period) to three principal objects : — 

1. To establish the supremacy of the Pope over the 
Patriarch, and secure his universal acknowledgment as 
head of the Greek Church. 

2. To divide the members of the Church, and bring 
over as many subjects as possible from the Patriarch to 
the Pope. 

3. To Latinise the doctrines of the East. 

The first and most desired object, as it involved the 



94 



THE GREEK CHURCH. 



entire conquest of the Church, could not have been per- 
manently accomplished except by the submission of all the 
four Patriarchs, enforced by the public act of a General 
Council; and if this was difficult to effect under the 
feeble sway of the latest emperors, it became impossible 
under the jealous dominion of the Turk. For why 
should the Sultan permit a stranger to regulate the 
religious duties of his own slaves in his own capital ? 

It would appear, then, that, after the taking of Con- 
stantinople, # the aspirations of Eome were limited to 
the second object, and here they were not without suc- 
cess. I do not indeed feel quite assured, that the Latin- 
ised societies resident in Greece absolutely disclaimed 
their Patriarch and looked to Eome alone for guidance ; 
nor do I believe that the Latinised Patriarchs paid more 
than nominal homage to the Vatican. But it is quite 
certain that this last succeeded to a great extent in 
introducing difference and dissension among the Greeks. 

The third object (to Romanise the doctrines of Greece) 
was of course pursued in common with the other two, 
with an ardour accommodated to circumstances, which 
seemed to increase as the points thought most material 
became less attainable ; and we have already observed to 
what precise extent it was accomplished. And thus the 
permanent and visible results of this long and various 
contest may be reduced to these : the final independence 
of the Greek Church; the apostasy of a small proportion 
of its members to the communion of Eome ; the adop- 
tion of the doctrine of transubstantiation in the place of 
the loose and uncertain notions which had before pre- 
vailed on that subject. 

* Leonardus Chiensis thus addressed the Pope on the severest evil 
which Christianity ever sustained : 64 Heu qua? spes in populo duro, qui 
tot annis sine vita spirituali abscissus a capite manebat ! Quomodo non 
desperati, quomodo non abjecti a Deo ! Qui ab ecclesia elongati Romana 
in cordis duritie permanserunt ! " &c. I quote this from a little book con- 
taining a great deal of truth, called " The Establishment of the Turks in 
Europe." 

END OP PART II. 



PART III. 



THE STROP HADES. 



I publish these letters at the importunity of the very learned friend 
to whom they are most unworthily addressed, and have, therefore, only 
to pray that the censure due to their levity may be directed to his 
partiality. They have no claim whatsoever on general attention, except 
that they were written on the island of our very old acquaintances the 
Harpies, by the only traveller who had then, or, as far as I know, has 
ever, indulged the boyish curiosity to visit them. 



1829. 



" Convent of the StropJiades, May, 1820. 

" My dear T. 

"If there be half so much pleasure in receiving 
letters as there is vanity in dating them from places 
which none ever saw, and few ever heard of, you will 
thank me for addressing you from the unexplored Stro- 
phades; and, indeed, is it not a just and natural pride 
which I feel in treading these islands, of which no one 
knows anything more than that they are 6 Xnsulse Ionio 
in magno,' though every one is familiar with the story 
which gives them celebrity? Such at least was the 
extent of my own knowledge until the other day, when, 
accidentally turning over a Meletius at Corfu, I found 
that they were situated only thirty-five miles south of 
Zante; and that, even* as lately as the days of that 
geographer, they were still suspected of harbouring a 
race of monstrous birds, not, indeed, precisely answering 
the description of Virgil, but such as might be believed 
the degenerate descendants of Celseno, and as like the 
Harpies of ancient days as a Greek of Mistra is like a 
Greek of Sparta. # My curiosity thus received an addi- 
tional impulse, and as all travellers are interested in 
maintaining each others' credit, I was willing to en- 
counter some risk even in support of the veracity of 
iEneas, For this, you know, is the land of credulity as 
well as imagination; and the tales which you in England 
call fables, are with us, under this soft blue heaven, 
matters of fervid and blissful certainty. 

" Well ; from Corfu I sailed to Zante, and at Zante I 
embarked with my servant in an open boat at about ten 
last night. At day- break we had passed the southern 
extremity of that island, but the sun, which, as it rose 

* These letters were written while I was on my way to the East, be/ore 
the Revolution. 

H 



98 



THE STBOPHADES. 



from behind the Morea, defined the majestic outlines of 
Olenus and Erymanth, did not yet disclose the ob- 
ject of our search. Four other hours of tedious pro- 
gress and expectation were required before we descried 
the humble Strophades emerging from the sea mist. The 
Maestrale carried us nearly to the entrance of the little 
port — 'vela cadunt, remis insurgimus' — and at midday 
our anchor was cast under the shelter of a rock crowned 
with an old and extensive building. The Greek flag had 
been hoisted on the first appearance of the bark, and on 
our arrival some monks presented themselves on the 
beach. After a short explanation, occasioned by the 
novelty of such a visit, I was permitted to land, and 
conducted with great civility to the convent. 

"The convent is situated on the north side of the 
larger island, and I think on the highest spot in it ; my 
cell is extremely neat and clean, and, for a monastery, 
spacious ; the window looks to the north-west, the di- 
rection in which I always look with most pleasure ; thus, 
too, it admits the cool Maestrale, which, at this season, 
usually rises at about eleven every morning, and con- 
tinues to refresh the East until evening. Zante and the 
north-west coast of the Morea are before my eyes, and I 
do begin at last to feel myself in Greece, At Corcyra, 
Leucadia, Ithaca, Zacynthos, the beating of drums and 
the flashing of bayonets, under a cloudless sky, and 
amidst Oriental scenery and costumes, confuse our as- 
sociations and feelings ; and in the doubt whether most 
to love what Greece was or what England is, patriotism 
will sometimes triumph over memory and imagination; 
but here have I full liberty to sigh over the languid 
features of mortality, undisturbed by any living spectacle 
of wealth and power. The Strophades are, indeed, also 
under English protection ; but there is no garrison here, 
and, what is more singular, no Englishman has hitherto 
ever set foot on the islands. Most of the land belongs 
to a nobleman of Zante, by whom it is let to the monks, 
who are forty in number, and the only inhabitants. 

"Of these two islands, the smaller is a mere rock, 



THE STEOPHADES. 



99 



remarkable only for the vast masses of stone which the 
storms have rolled upon it, and the quantity of very 
white salt, filling the basons or chasms thus formed. It 
lies to the northward, and by thus presenting its hoary 
front to the tempests, it seems to secure the peace and 
fertility of its happier neighbour. This last is about 
six miles in circumference, covered in almost every part 
with luxuriant verdure. A certain space in the centre 
is cultivated with corn, and produces sufficient to satisfy 
the wants of its cultivators. I observe some small vine- 
yards ; sheep and goats are in abundance, and the ' lseta 
bourn passim campis armenta ' still continue to tempt 
the voracity of strangers, and to justify the description 
of iEneas. But one point there is, affecting the topo- 
graphical fidelity either of the son of Anchises, or of 
his accomplished poet, which I may not pass over un- 
noticed. His description leads us to expect high and 
mountainous land, ' aperire procul monies — de montibus 
adsunt Harpyiae.' Alas ! the low rock on which the 
convent stands, and which, at ten or twelve miles' dis- 
tance, is scarcely visible at sea, ill deserves the dignified 
appellation ; and the island descends from the north 
almost to the level of the sea on the south, so much so, 
that to ships approaching at night, or in mist, from that 
quarter, there is no small danger of being stranded. I 
believe, indeed, that the Strophades are the lowest 
islands of Greece, whether in the Ionian or the JEgean 
sea. 

" And certainly we sail more safely, as well as more 
agreeably over these enchanted waters, when we intrust 
ourselves to the conduct of Homer, rather than to that 
of his less accurate imitator. Even already I have had 
opportunities of observing that Homeric epithets are 
not only faithfully true, but peculiarly characteristic — 
thus, for instance: vXy^c-o-u ZxxwSos (which Yirgil has 
had the good fortune to translate) denotes the very cir- 
cumstance which distinguishes Zante from its neighbour 
Cephalonia. Again, in Ithaca, n^*to» S^j . . . Ta,v6<pv?r/.ov r 
has a much more appropriate beauty than Virgil's 

h 2 



100 



THE STEOPHADES. 



Neritos ardua saxis ; because, even to this moment, the 
mountain which we have the best reason to believe 
Neritos, though certainly far from luxuriant, is still 
marked by much more pretension to verdure, than any 
of those about it. Indeed, the present appearance of 
the islands of Greece is probably not very different, 
even in such respects, from that which was presented to 
the eye of Homer ; they are in general well inhabited, 
and, therefore well cultivated ; and as in most of them 
nature, by the intermixture of impracticable rock, has 
imperiously decided the limits of human labour, it is not 
possible that the interrupted industry even of many 
centuries should have wrought in them any material 
change. And this is one great cause of the higher 
curiosity and pleasure with which we examine and con- 
template the insular scenery of the East. 

"An afternoon of solitude was delightfully spent in 
exploring the secrets of the island ; for it is a feeling of 
rare and exquisite satisfaction with which the traveller 
approaches some consecrated spot — the object of his 
boyish dreams, or of the more serious triflings of his 
maturity — which has hitherto lain hid from modern ob- 
servation, and presents itself, as antiquity has left it, 
unexplored by our enthusiasm, and uncelebrated by our 
vanity. It may be a very trifling object that he is in 
search of, and a very useless discovery that bounds his 
expectations ; yet the hand which raises the veil cannot 
fail to tremble with something of that generous hope 
which admits not of disappointment. Some fragments 
of ancient days may be concealed in the shades which 
lie before him; some broken statue, or sculptured co- 
lumn, representing the features and the genius of the 
men of other times — a sepulchre or an urn, the record of 
their piety. Alas ! by no record of piety or of genius, by 
no fragment of art, however rude or disfigured, was my 
curious toil rewarded ; nor any vestige of antiquity did I 
discover, nor any other recompense did I meet with, 
except the sight of those imperishable charms which 
Nature is generally ready to display to those who love 



THE STEOPHADES. 



101 



them, and which on this spot she may hitherto have 
lavished in vain. 

" The corn-fields in the centre are snrronnded by deep 
and fragrant groves and shrubberies of mastic and 
myrtle, extending in most parts quite down to the sea- 
shore, and forming a green girdle which almost encom- 
passes the island ; some undulations in the ground add 
to beauty, variety and appearance of extent ; and one of 
the valleys thus formed is adorned by a thick and exten- 
sive grove of laurel. These recesses are not unvisited by 
song, and at this season are chiefly animated by the 
voice of the dove, now on her passage northward. Other 
interruption there is none, save this and the distant 
dashing of the sea- waves, to the silence everywhere pre- 
vailing, and inducing serious feelings and recollections of 
other ages." 



" The convent is well built and in good repair, and the 
interior is remarkably clean, so as to be free from the 
various annoyances usual in Oriental habitations ; and 
the monks present, both in appearance and manner, a 
singular contrast to the inmates of the wealthier monas- 
teries of the south of Italy and Sicily. I am inclined to 
think that the difference is not merely external; and 
with little general faith in monastic excellence, I feel 
strongly persuaded that the holy persons here surround- 
ing me are not only free from the ordinary vices of hu- 
manity, but also that they live in the possession of many 
good principles, and in the exercise of many feelings not 
common to the mass of their countrymen. And this is 
the best effect that can possibly result from seclusion 
from the world ; and if it become less improbable as the 
seclusion is more perfect, there can be no place where 
we may look for it with greater certainty than in this. 
Por no human being inhabits and very few approach 
this island except its religious occupants, who thus have 
little other communication with their fellow- creatures 



102 



THE STROPHADES. 



than by an occasional visit of one or two of the members 
to Zante. 

There is another point of monastic discipline which 
they observe as rigidly as the brotherhood of Mount 
Athos are said to do, and much more so than is usual 
in smaller establishments; for in most other convents, 
however desolate and apart from human conversation, 
on mountain tops, or among savage forests, one or 
more of the female sex are to be found engaged in 
menial offices, or associated in religious duties ; but on 
this island there is no record that the foot of woman 
has ever been placed. Again, as there is here no police 
or health establishment, there can be no direct inter- 
course with the continent of Greece ; and passing vessels 
are much more anxious to avoid the danger of the low 
coast, than to seek shelter in the insecure harbour of the 
Strophades. Thus, it w r ould be difficult to imagine a 
community more nearly severed from the world than 
this ; they possess all their resources within themselves ; 
their own island supplies them with corn, vegetables, 
and excellent water ; what little of wine or oil they may 
require is obtained from Zante, whither their cattle is 
carried to pay their rent (for on no occasion, as they 
assure me, do they ever touch meat) ; and a slight addi- 
tion to their revenue is made by the sale of turtle-doves, 
which resort hither in vast numbers during the two 
seasons of their passage, and are shot or taken by the 
monks ; these also they send, in vinegar, to Zante : and 
this is the extent of their intercourse with man. 

" So circumstanced, I am not surprised to find them 
ignorant and credulous, and that they are not still more 
so, is owing to that keen native curiosity and shrewdness 
which belong to them as Greeks. Just now I shewed 
them a map, the first that they had ever beheld, and 
pointed out to them, as they crowded about me, the 
little spot where we were conversing- — &vto<; b 7 ottos., .avrlg 
0 tottos, was pronounced with an universal eagerness and 
enthusiasm, indicating more patriotism than I could 
have believed them to possess. But this, again, was 



THE STBOPHADES. 



103 



Grecian : for there is scarcely a rock, mountain, or islet, 
in this singular country, however wild or unattractive, in 
which its inhabitant does not find some peculiar charm, 
the cause of a vague partiality so exclusive, so limited, so 
merely local, that he will often indulge it to the con- 
tempt or hatred of those who dwell on the adjoining 
rock. And, besides, there is no just reason for surprise 
that some sort of attachment to their residence should 
be found to exist even in monastic bosoms ; for this is 
the home to which their passions, and all their earthly 
hopes, are confined ; where their virtues can alone be 
exercised, and where the prayers, which are continually 
offered, must sometimes be offered with earnestness 
and devotion. 

" The office of Papa, or Hegoumenos, which lasts two 
years, is now held by a most venerable old monk, whose 
long white beard flows amply over his purple vest. Even 
a more striking object, both in figure and character, is a 
Father more than ninety years of age, who retains all 
the fire and curiosity of youth, and displays it in the 
most particular inquiries respecting my travels, my pur- 
suits, my studies, my habits, and those of my country. 
The most enlightened among my venerable friends is a 
native of the Morea, who several years ago presented his 
fortune (about two thousand dollars) to the convent, 
and came to spend the rest of his life within its walls. 
These men are Greeks and monks ; but, if there be 
any faith in the expression of voice or countenance — 
if simplicity of manner be any promise of purity of 
mind — if ignorance of the business and pleasures of the 
world give any security against the contamination of its 
vices — they possess a piety, benevolence, and sinless dis- 
position to virtue, which would not disgrace a purer 
form of Christianity. I believe the same to be true of 
many others of the community, but on these three I 
have had the best means of observing." 



104 



THE STROPHADES. 



" I am treated with great attention by the leading 
persons, and with perfect civility by all. Early this 
morning I received an invitation to breakfast with the 
Hegoumenos, in the garden of the convent. On my 
appearance at the gate, I was mnch astonished to be 
honoured by a salute of some pieces of cannon (they are 
kept here for defence against piratical or other aggres- 
sion) ; the holy flag, decorated with the figures of Christ, 
the Madonna, and St. John, was waving in the garden, 
and some of the Elders, in their most decent apparel, 
advanced to receive me. I was conducted into a beauti- 
ful arbour of myrtles, ornamented with lilies and other 
flowers ; our table was a round mass of stone, so per- 
forated as to leave space for a myrtle to grow up through 
the centre, and interpose among the guests its delicate 
leaves. Around the arbour were orange and lemon- 
trees, — 

Taoov ov-jrore tcapirbs anoAAvTai, aWa iua\ y alel 
Ze(pvpi7] irvGiovaa ra fxkv cpvet., &Wa de ireaaei — 

the fruit, indeed, had every tint, from the deepest green 
to the yellowness of maturity ; and the blowing zephyr 
was rewarded for its toil by the odours which it carried 
off from branches, where the flower was blooming by the 
side of the fragrant fruit. 

" The usual fare was abundantly provided, with the 
addition of tea, of which my hosts partook fearfully, and, 
as is usual in the East, medicinally, in the belief that 
sudden enervation would succeed the slightest intempe- 
rance in that respect ; in other matters we all did justice 
to our fare, and to the hospitable branches which em- 
bowered us. I retired from the garden with the same 
honours which attended my entrance, and once more 
sought the shade and solitude of the laurel grove." 



" This is, indeed, a very beautiful little island. I 
never beheld a spot so favourable to Pan, and the 
Naiads, and the Nereids, Troma? Here are 



THE STEOPHADES. 



105 



tangled branches and flowering turf almost to the ocean's 
edge, and here are shades and shelter, and caves and 
myrtles, and silence and secrecy, — all that recommends 
the valleys of Arcadia, except £ the breathing roses of 
the wood.' Indeed this place does appertain more pro- 
perly to Arcadia (from whose shores it is not forty miles 
distant) than to the barren Ionian sea ; and, in wander- 
ing among its pastoral recesses, or emerging from its 
thickets into some open green spot beset by fragrant 
shrubs, you would expect to see the Ladon winding at 
your feet between its ' lilied banks,' or 6 old Lycseus or 
Cyllene hoar ' shaking his shaggy head above you — were 
it not that the ceaseless beating of the billows, every- 
where audible, for ever reminds you under which sceptre 
you are living. And yet there exists a traditionary 
circumstance, by which it would seem that nature has 
intended a perpetual union between the Strophades and 
the Continent; for the monks inform me of faithful 
records to prove that the Alpheus has frequently pre- 
sented himself at a well in this island, and deposited 
there shrubs, flowers, roots, or leaves, which had been 
confided to him in Elis. The monks, who are certainly 
not very credulous, except where their superstitions are 
concerned, are bold enough to disbelieve this story ; but 
to me it seems nothing improbable, that in his subter- 
aqueous journey to visit his Arethusa, the old river god 
should pause at this delightful resting-place, and here 
resign some portion of the tribute intended for his Syra- 
cusan mistress. 

" But none of these pious brethren were aware of the 
classical importance of their island, nor had any clear 
tradition reached them respecting its ancient inhabitants, 
or the irruption of the Son of Venus. I had the plea- 
sure of relating to them the fable on the scene of its 
action, and they received the communication with mute 
and sceptical astonishment. The story, however, spread 
with great rapidity ; and presently several took the field, 
with guns and other weapons, against some large sea- 
birds which frequent the coast ; two were brought in of 



106 



THE STBOPHADES. 



unusual form and dimensions, to the larger of which, 
measuring nearly four feet from the bill to the tail, they 
chose to apply the name of wK70Kopocx.cc, or owl. Owls 
are, in fact, exceedingly abundant in the island, and 
enjoy, in its woody recesses, the most undisturbed re- 
pose ; but in the bird in question I could not discover, 
on the most curious examination, the slightest resem- 
blance either to JNyctimene or Celaeno. The other they 
called irXuKd, a name more generally applied to the com- 
mon sea-bird, xipoq ; but this, in the Strophades, is 
named uprivoc. But none of them, howsoever named, can 
be suspected of any affinity to the harpies of _ZEneas. 

" This disappointment demanded the kind of consola- 
tion which immediately followed and allayed it. The 
wKTQKopocKo, was replaced on my table by a lamb, fed only 
on milk, which had fallen for my dinner, and w T as dressed 
entire, in the ancient fashion; and which I assaulted, 
fearless now of any interruption from the ' obsc cense volu- 
cres,' whether by foul and filthy contact, or by the ' vox 
tetrum dira inter odor em.' 

" Presently I received a visit from my white-bearded 
friends, bearing liqueurs and other luxuries ; and I then 
learnt, with much astonishment, that while I was uncon- 
sciously wandering in the groves, immediately after high 
mass, a regular Litania had been performed by the He- 
goumenos and the whole community, in full dress, for 
the health and success of myself and the happiness of 
my family. I believe them to have been perfectly dis- 
interested in this attention, meaning only to confer the 
highest honour in their power (and it was the highest 
possible honour) on the first Englishman who had visited 
their island. I was pleased and affected by it; and am 
confirmed, by this and all else that I have here observed, 
in the opinion that the members of the Greek Church 
have no violent prejudices against our heresy, nor will 
form any, as long as we treat their religious ceremonies 
with respect; and that this respect is industriously 
paid by our soldiers and officers of every rank, I am 
most happy, on repeated observation, to attest. 



THE STEOPHADES. 



107 



"The north-west wind subsided towards evening, and 
the srm calmly descended into the smooth and burnished 
sea. Slowly receding from the water, the tints of even- 
ing spread themselves over the sky, and varied and 
brightened as they spread. On the one hand, the dark 
outlines of Zante were extended along the painted hori- 
zon. On the other, lay the shores of ancient Pylos, 
overhung by the summits of the Messenian mountains, 
still shining with the last glance of day.. The clouds, 
which in fine summer weather collect in white folds above 
the continent of Greece and brood peacefully over it, 
had either vanished with the sun, or caught the moment- 
ary colours of the west; and the veil of misty light, which 
is thrown during the glare of day over the distant coast, 
softening its outlines, but confusing its features, had al- 
ready melted away and disclosed the naked prospect of 
its magnificence. "While the whole ocean and earth and 
heaven were overspread by that air of pensive tranquillity 
which is peculiar to the features of Greece, which is in- 
spired by her dignity and her sorrows, which mitigates the 
severity of her beauty, and by which her most enchanting 
expression is ever most divinely animated." 



" Two severe shocks of earthquake disturbed, at a very 
early hour, the light slumbers of my abstemious friends, 
and threw the convent into some confusion ; for such 
events are less usual here than at Zante or SantaMaura : 
but presently morning rose with its accustomed splen- 
dour, and disclosed a new object of terror somewhat 
more lasting than the other. This was the spectacle of 
a Turkish fleet, becalmed near the eastern coast: there 
was some apprehension of a friendly visit from its irre- 
gular crews, and the name of the tutelar saint, Dionysius, 
was again invoked with frequent earnestness, until a 
light breeze sprang up from the south, and carried them 
a few miles forward, on their way to suppress the rebel- 
lion of Ali Pasha. Rescued from this second peril, and 
now hopeless of any more interesting discoveries, I al- 



108 



THE STKOPHADES. 



lowed myself to be conducted about by the monks, in 
order to see what they consider the real curiosities of 
the island; and I will so far compliment their vanity, at 
the expense of your patience, as to enumerate them to 
you. 

" First in honour and sanctity, is the fountain of St. 
Bionysius, the living and perennial proof of his miraculous 
powers. Its fresh and wholesome waters ooze from the 
rocks at about fifty yards from the sea, and preserve 
their purity almost on the brink of the briny element. 
This has been attributed to supernatural intervention, 
and the belief is embraced with a credulity not universal 
even in Greece ; for there is a fountain at Polis, in Ithaca, 
welling as purely from the sands, wdthin five yards of 
the water's edge, which I could never learn to be conse- 
crated by any legend. # 

" 2. — The well of the Alpheus derives little respect 
from the profane fable which dignifies its origin ; but as 
it is the only object in the island connected with any 
story of classical antiquity, it excited just interest enough 
in me to make me sorry to find it so extremely like any 
other well. 

" 3. — The chapel of St. John is indeed a horrible curio- 
sity. It is the charnel-house, where all the bones of the 
deceased are deposited. For three years they are allowed 
to repose in their place of sepulture ; at the end of that 
period they are disinterred, and dismembered, and brought 
into this, their final receptacle ; and here are they carefully 
piled up, wretched fragments of mortality ! the legs and 
arms on one side, and the grinning skulls on the other, 
while a lamp is left to glimmer, as if in mockery, upon 
them. I am at a loss to assign any motive for this dis- 
gusting custom. The Turks plant flowers where the 
bodies are placed, and oppress the earth by no marble, 

* I should now remark, that the Ithakesians, among whom I passed 
some weeks, appear to me to have more classical and fewer religious tra- 
ditions, than any people in Greece. 



THE STEOPHADES. 



109 



that at the day of judgment they may spring upwards 
without impediment. The thirsty JNubian or Arab of the 
desert places a jar of water at the head of his departed 
friend, lest the great want which has tormented him in 
this world should pursue him into the next, Others are 
diligent in preserving the limbs from corruption, and the 
features from change : and there are some (as the Ca- 
pucines in the Latomia at Syracuse) who endeavour to 
throw the very air and expression of life into the sense- 
less remains of the departed, by placing them erect in 
their usual dress, or their favourite attitude — nay, they 
do not hesitate to crown their heads with myrtle, and 
adorn them as if for the dance or the festival ; yet, for 
all these varieties of superstition, we may discover some 
pardonable motive in the piety or in the weakness of hu- 
manity : but to tear the bodies from the earth, and ar- 
range in promiscuous heaps the disjointed members, is to 
anticipate and surpass the ravages of time and cor- 
ruption. 

"4. — They show the cave of St. Dionysius, which was 
the favourite scene of his devotions, and is thus invested 
with peculiar sanctity. When the Turks, in a war with 
the Venetians, landed on this island, the monks carried 
hither the bones and treasures of the Saint, piously con- 
signing both him and his property to his own pro- 
tection. The Tiu-ks were not curious to explore the 
recesses of the island ; so, to save trouble, they collected 
several of the monks, and, having stripped them, proceeded 
so diligently in the application of the nabboot, that the 
secret of the Saint was soon betrayed, and the wealth and 
the relics delivered up to the Infidel. Both were carried 
away, and with them eighteen monks, the companions of 
the bondage of then Saint. However, both monks and 
relics were soon afterwards redeemed by a pious bishop, 
who prudently placed the latter under protection of the 
temporal power residing at Zante, where they still re- 
main. 



110 



THE STEOPnADES. 



"5. — The Cave of the Madonna was plundered by the 
same hands which violated that of Dionysius : some relies 
were also carried away in this case, but I am unable to 
learn their precise nature, nor can I find that they were 
ever recovered. But it is certain that many cruel scenes 
took place, and that some blood was shed, of which the 
eternal stain is shown on one of the convent walls. 

"6. — The Cenotaph of the Saint completes the list of 
holy things; it is a monument of stone, neatly cut, and 
adorned with a modern inscription, which was engraved, 
and probably composed, at Constantinople, and it is thus 
very little in unison either with his fountain or his cave, 
or with any other object in this rude and artless island. 
There is a tradition of magnificent gardens formerly 
flourishing on the northern coast, which have been 
washed away by the tempests, and an old sepulchre was 
lately found there, in an abrupt bank of difficult access, 
which may possibly contain others. 

" Thus you see, among the sacred things of this un- 
travelled spot, how large a proportion still are caves and 
fountains. Tou see how little the spirit of its sanctity 
has been affected by the change of its religion — how 
little it ceased to be Grecian, when it became Christian. 
These people seem as if they could not live except in the 
actual presence of immortals ; they are not satisfied by 
their distant protection — they will have them down on 
earth to dwell with. them. And so it has happened that 
the same fiery restlessness of imagination, which lent 
beauty and variety to paganism, which created, indeed, 
its very substance and essence, has turned itself to the 
false adornment of Christianity, suspending fantastic 
decorations over the altar of Grod, and spoiling the sim- 
plicity of true religion by vain and incongruous devices." 



THE STROPHADES. 



Ill 



I recollect that these meditations were interrupted by 
the voice of my pilot, urgently pressing my immediate 
embarkation. I followed most reluctantly, for I was 
leaving for ever a place which nad not yet lost its charms 
on me. And having engraven on the walls of my cell a 
sincere testimonial of gratitude to my hospitable friends, 
I was attended by them in long procession clown to the 
beach, where I received their parting salutations, and en- 
tered my little skiff, under a salute from their whole 
battery. But not thus was I allowed to depart, nor were 
my Grecian hosts on this occasion unmindful of their 
own honour, or the manners of their forefathers. A 
young kid, perfectly white, without spot or blemish, was 
the £e/v*ov which I found waiting for me on board, and 
which I turned loose the following morning upon the 
Zantiote hills. 



THE EXD. 



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